Janice Mirikitani on the true spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.

Sansei poet, activist, and community organizer Janice Mirikitani was born in February 1941 in Stockton, California. As an infant, she was incarcerated with her family at the Rohwer, Arkansas, concentration camp. After leaving camp, she grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and Petaluma, California. During the 1960s and '70s, she became involved in numerous social movements and began writing. Her first book, “Awake in the River,” was published in 1978. In 1982, she married Reverend Cecil Williams. Mirikitani became the president of the Glide Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing services for San Francisco's marginalized communities.
In this clip, Mirikitani describes being honored with an award on Martin Luther King Day, and speaking about the true spirit of King: standing up for what you believe in.
This clip is an excerpt from Janice Mirikitani's Densho oral history interview conducted January 16, 2016. To see the complete interview segment, visit the Densho Digital Repository: ddr.densho.org...