‘Samurai Among Panthers’

“Samurai Among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life,” by Diane C. Fujino. Critical American Studies, University of Minnesota Press, 2012

This account by Diane C. Fujino of the life of Richard Aoki, a Japanese-American who, along with his parents, spent time in an internment camp in the United States during World War II, covers an important period in history when the Civil Rights, left and Black Power movements had a tremendous impact in the U.S.

Born in 1938, Aoki was three-and-a-half years old when his family was relocated to the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, Calif. They were later transferred to the Topaz, Utah, concentration camp. The strain of the internment camps led to the separation of Aoki’s parents, which had a tremendous impact on him as a youth.

Aoki grew up in the predominantly African-American community in West Oakland, Calif. His working-class mother raised her sons on less than two dollars an hour during the 1950s.

Aoki described himself at the time as politically anti-communist, but soon he would pick up a book by Eugene Debs, the socialist organizer and presidential candidate in the early 20th century. He found Debs inspiring and would go on to study the history of the labor movement. He landed a job in a factory during this period and participated in a strike.

Regarding the Watts Rebellion in Los Angeles, Aoki recounted: “I remember when Watts busted loose in 1965. I was working in this one factory where 90 percent of the [300] people working the line were White southerners. Half of them didn’t show up for work the day after the Watts riots.”

Aoki states: “I asked the foreman, ‘We got to get the show on the road. Where the hell is everybody?’ He said, ‘Man they’re at home in Richmond or wherever in the tract homes, and they got their front doors barricaded and their guns out for that invasion coming in from Watts.’ I said, ‘There ain’t going to be no invasion coming from Watts.’”

Aoki concluded that “on the one hand, these coworkers of mine were strong union people, you know proletarian-oriented, class-conscious workers. But when it came to race, half the workers, being White southerners, were freaked out over Watts. I was stunned.”

The first contact Aoki made with the left was with the Socialist Workers Party and their youth wing, the Young Socialist Alliance. Fujino dates Aoki’s involvement with the YSA to as early as 1961.

When he entered the University of California at Berkeley, Aoki became involved with the Vietnam Day Committee and the Tricontinental Movement. His emphasis was on the emergent Black revolutionary movement and Third World radicalism.

Aoki had known Huey P. Newton through their mutual involvement in street activities. In September 1966, Akoi would attend a Black Nationalist conference in San Francisco which brought together a number of militant organizations.

The following month, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was formed in Oakland with Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale as the co-founders. Aoki assisted in distributing the Panther 10-point program and soon he was appointed as a captain for the establishment of a branch in Berkeley, with him being the only member.

Black Panthers and Red Guards

He recounts how a group of Asian Americans went to Bobby Seale and David Hilliard requesting to join the Panthers. At the time, membership was restricted to African Americans. They soon came up with the idea of forming a Panther-like organization called the Red Guards in San Francisco. The organization was a close ally of the Panther Party.

Aoki was also a leading member of the Asian American Political Alliance, which had a revolutionary perspective. His activities with the Panthers, the Red Guard and the AAPA would soon cause him problems with the SWP/YSA.

After delivering a report on the Black Nationalist conference to the SWP, the party wanted to reassign him to work on issues unrelated to the national question. He rejected this suggestion and would later resign from the SWP after they expressed concerns that his activities with the African-American and Asian revolutionary organizations might cause difficulty for the party.

Aoki said that his linking up with the Panthers was “the greatest political opportunity of my life.” He attributed the decimation of the Panthers to the heavy repression by the FBI and police agencies, the forcing into exile and imprisonment of its key leadership, the assassinations of officials within the organization, and the turn toward reformism and electoral politics by 1973.

But Aoki notes: “Even with these problems, I stand behind my conviction that the formation of the BPP was one of the greatest things to happen to twentieth-century America as far as the struggle for freedom, justice, and equality is concerned. It may not have been the perfect organization, but I’m amazed at its importance not only in the world but in my personal life.”

In 1969, his attention would focus on the Third World Liberation Front, which led the student strike at Berkeley. Out of this struggle, ethnic studies — encompassing Black, Latino/a and Asian curricula — were developed. This was part of the battle for ethnic studies across the U.S.

Aoki finished his graduate work and became a counselor and administrator within the California university system. During the 1990s, he advocated for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal and other political prisoners and opposed the repeal of affirmative action programs in California. He died in 2009.