November 20, 1938
Richard Masato Aoki was born to Shozo Aoki and Toshiko Kaniye in San Leandro, California.
December 7, 1941
The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service staged a surprise attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii.
February 19, 1942
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, forcing the removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to “relocation centers” or internment camps.
March 2, 1942
General John DeWitt, the army’s administrator for the western United States, issued proclamations establishing Military Areas No. 1 and No. 2. General DeWitt issued other proclamations declaring all persons of Japanese descent would be removed from the entire state of California and the remainder of Military Area No. 1.
March 18, 1942
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9102 to create the War Relocation Authority, a civilian agency tasked with assisting with the removal of all Japanese and Japanese Americans from California.
1942-1945
Aoki family interned at the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, California, and then at the Topaz War Relocation Authority Camp in Topaz, Utah.
January, 1957
Aoki graduated from Berkeley High School. Three days after graduation, he enlisted in the United States Army.
1964-1966
Aoki attended Merritt Community College where he met Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.
1966-1968
Aoki attended and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and a Master of Science in Social Welfare. While at the university, Aoki joined the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.
1969
Aoki participated in the Third World Liberation Front strike. Aoki was among those arrested for protesting. The strike ended when the University of California at Berkeley agreed to start an ethnic studies department. Aoki was one of the first professors in the department.
1971
Aoki returned to Merritt College, part of the Peralta Community College District, to teach and remained in the district for 25 years, serving as a counselor, instructor, and administrator.
March 15, 2009
| Aoki died from a self-inflicted gunshot. He had been battling health issues stemming from a stroke, a heart attack, and failing kidneys. |
November 12, 2009
The documentary “Aoki” was released by AokiFilms. The documentary was shot from 2004-2008 and released months after Aoki’s death.
2010
| The documentary “Merritt College: Home of the Black Panthers” was released. Aoki was interviewed for the documentary in 2008. |
August 21, 2012
| Seth Rosenfeld’s “Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals and Reagan’s Rise to Power” was published. In the book and in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Rosenfeld claimed that former FBI agent, Burney Threadgill, Jr. identified Aoki as an FBI informant. This claim was challenged by Dr. Diane C. Fujino, who wrote Samurai Among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life (2012). |
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Through an exploration of the life of Japanese American activist Richard Aoki, students will examine one man’s story that is more complex than the simple binaries we often find in stories of activism.
