In honor of #Women's History Month, today #Margaret Prescod, host of #Pacifica Radio's "#Sojourner Truth" program, aired Part I of the documentary, "#Mountains That Take Wing: Conversation on Life Struggles & Liberation" which is built around a dialogue between veteran activists, Yuri Kochiyama and Angela Davis. The film, released in 2009, was made by #C.A. Griffith and #H.L.T. Quan. For a summary of the film, check out this link on the Women Make Movies website:
http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c796.shtml.
You can catch "Part 2" of this inspiring documentary tomorrow (7 a.m. - 8 a.m. PST) on Pacifica Radio (KPFK, Southern Calif./KPFA, Northern Calif.) . In a world where excellent female role models are scarce, these women are outstanding in their courage to stand up for what they believe, and their articulate recollections give fresh perspectives on civil rights, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis' unfair incarceration that you might not hear anywhere else.
Of special interest to me was hearing Kochiyama and Davis discuss the impact and presence of racial "crossover" activists such as Japanese Americans such as Yuri who supported civil rights for all and African Americans who went to the Philippines to fight as soldiers.
From the beginning, I have been concerned that my lack of "Asian" credentials would work against me as I navigated this film project about Yuri's early years as a budding activist in a U.S. concentration camp. (Well, in the past few months I've learned my great-grandfather was Mongolian, but that's another story...) But when I read Yuri's autobiography, Passing It On, her story of how afraid she was that Malcolm X would reject her on the basis of race and culture hit home, and the fact that they easily crossed a "boundary" that turned out to be an illusion gave me hope.
When I interviewed 87-year-old #Yuri Kochiyama for this film, I asked her, "What drives you?" Yuri answered, "When I see things that need to be corrected."
Thank you, #Margaret Prescod, for choosing this illuminating documentary to highlight in honor of Women's History Month!
Dear Friends, if you'd like to listen to today's show, here's the link:
https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F83219632&show_artwork=true
Let us never forget how hard other women have worked for our freedom.
