The Bridges Yuri Built: How Yuri Kochiyama Marched Across Movements

INTRODUCING THE NEXT GENERATION OF YOUNG READERS TO ONE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY’S MOST COURAGEOUS FREEDOM FIGHTERS, YURI KOCHIYAMA (1921 -- 2014).

Debut children’s picture book author Kai Naima Williams -- great-granddaughter of Yuri Kochiyama -- intimately chronicles the experiences and lessons, hardships and victories, and people and places that shaped Yuri’s life and influenced her activism. From Yuri’s incarceration in a Japanese-American concentration camp during World War II to her participation in movements organizing for better schools in Harlem to her close friendship with Malcolm X, Yuri never wavered in her belief in the power of the people -- especially young people -- to bring about social change.

Through imaginative writing and vibrant illustrations by Anastasia Magloire Williams, THE BRIDGES YURI BUILT is sure to inspire young readers to embrace Yuri’s unwavering belief that together we can build a bridge to a better world.

＂The legacy I would like to leave is that people try to build bridges and not walls.＂ -- Yuri Kochiyama

Kai Naima Williams is a multi-disciplinary writer and performer based in Harlem. She is the author of the poetry collections He Tried to Drown the Ocean, I Waved and Tomorrow Maps, and a co-founder of Eat At The Table Theatre Company.Her work has been honored by the Asian American Arts Alliance, MoCADA, the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival and The New York Times.

Kai Naima Williams lives in New York City.