SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Civil right activisit Yuri Kochiyama, whose photograph famously appeared in LIFE Magazine cradling the head of Malcom X moments after he was shot, died of natural causes in her Berkeley, Calif. home. She was 93.
Her family said Kochiyama died in her sleep on Sunday.
Among her many accomplishments during 50 years of work, Kochiyama’s activism led directly to the U.S. Senate agreeing to pay reparations and apologize to Japanese-American citizens and others interred during the Second World War. Kochiyama was living in New York when she forged an unlikely bond with Malcolm X. She witnessed his 1965 assassination in New York.
The California Assembly adjourned in her memory Thursday.
Kochiyama is the author of a memoir, “Passing It On,” and is survived by four living children and several grandchildren.
