SAN FRANCISCO — Civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama, whose photograph famously appeared in Life magazine showing her cradling the head of Malcolm X moments after he was shot, has died of natural causes in her Berkeley home. She was 93.
Kochiyama’s family said she died in her sleep Sunday.
Among her many accomplishments during 50 years of work, Kochiyama’s activism led directly to the U.S. Senate’s agreement to pay reparations and apologize to Japanese-Americans and others who were interned during the World War II.
Kochiyama was living in New York when she forged an unlikely bond with Malcolm X, and she witnessed his 1965 assassination in New York.
Photo courtesy of Associated Press.