When I attended Grove Street College, The Peoples’ College, officially called North Peralta Community College, I was a Black Studies major, and just beginning to understand who I was as an artist. I encountered many educators who were influential to my development: the painter Claude Clarke Sr., the multi talent from Mali, Saribou Kone, painter David Hernandez, sculptor William Lem, my counselors, Jaime Soliz and Richard Masato Aoki.

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I enjoyed going to Richard’s office, because in our discussions he informed me about many things, about his early years in the interment camp for Japanese Americans in Topaz, Utah, about the history of Asian Americans in California, social contradictions. I remember him as a slight, short man; very similar to the 3rd World Liberation Front photo at the top, except at Grove Street he wore suits instead of a leather jacket and shades. Actually, my sense of him was less as the warrior, and more like a seed-sewing socially conscious activist. I dug his intellect, ironic humor, his sharp insights, someone I felt an afinity with. Years afterward, I’d talk about him to others, because our friendship, although only taking place in his office, was beneficial, contributing to my return to urban America after living in the mountains for two years.

I was in my early 20s, knocking around; after leaving New York for California, I’d lived at Black Bear Ranch, Covelo, and other places, and then returned to the Bay Area, to go to Grove Street College as the community called it. The school had quite a history. When it was Merritt Community College and from the surrounding community, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense had its origins, and it was where ethnic studies were flourishing. Its spirit was one of activism. I decided I wanted to learn an African language, thinking that by learning Kiswahili I would acquire a linguistic tool that would help me cope in the USA’s European dominated society. How wrong I was about European dominated! “America” has always been a multi-ethnic society, and it was here at the People’s College, that I learned this.

I hadn’t seen him since 1975, but he had made a lasting impression on me, and my thoughts would occasionally go back to him. These past few weeks I’d been thinking about him more than usual and decided to Google his name to see wassup. I had a shock and a surprise: shocked that he had just passed away this past March 15 from long standing illnesses, and surprise, that he was a Field Marshal in the Black Panther Party of Self Defense. He was one of its first members, an eight year Army vet who was trained as an expert in sharpshooting and small arms and was instrumental in training Panthers how to use guns.

According to Party Chairman and co-founder Bobby Seale, Aoki helped organize some of the Party’s first rallies against police brutality and gave them guns from his personal collection that was used to patrol the police in the early days of the party. It wasn’t known that Richard was a member of the Black Panther Party until the early 1990s, “That I was a field marshal is one of the biggest secrets…,” said Aoki, one of six Asian members out of 5,000 Panthers, and the only one of such a high rank.

After his family left the interment camp they moved to the Oakland. He knew Bobby, Huey Newton and David Hilliard and their families while growing up in Oakland and later, when he had embraced Marxist Leninist philosophy, Bobby and Huey showed him a draft of the 10 point program of that was later adopted by the Party. Richard rejected the idea of Asians as the "model minority" and felt that Asian Americans should recognize the common causes they had with other social groups; he was a leader of the University of California Berkeley’s 3rd World Liberation Front. During a 1969 demonstration in Berkeley he was armed with a wood staff and sent two policemen to the hospital.

Dr. Diane Fujino (his biographer), Bobby Seale, former chairman of the Black Panther Party, Richard

In Good Company

As a dedicated community organizer, educator, and inspirational force, he will long be remembered. Be on the lookout for an upcoming documentary about him by Ben Wang and Mike Cheng; here is a trailer for it. A shrine commemorating Richard Aoki that was presented at his memorial on May 2, 2009, Berkeley, California.

Thank you Richard. All praises due!

Black Panther Party for Self Defense Field Marshall Richard Masato Aoki