Richard Aoki

Richard Masato Aoki November 20, 1938 – March 15, 2009) was an American educator and college counselor, best known as a civil rights activist and early member of the Black Panther Party. He joined the early Black Panther Party and was eventually promoted to the position of Field Marshal. Although there were several Asian Americans in the Black Panther Party, Aoki was the only one to have a formal leadership position. Following Aoki's death, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's records on him were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, showing that, over a period of 15 years, he had been an informant for the government.

Biography Richard Aoki was born in San Leandro, California, in 1938 to Japanese parents Shozo Aoki and Toshiko Kaniye. He and his family were interned at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah from 1942 to 1945 due to Executive Order 9066. They moved to a predominantly black neighborhood in Oakland, California, after World War II ended.

Bobby Seale's text Seize the Time describes Aoki as the person who provided the Black Panthers with their first firearms.

It was originally reported that Aoki died at his home in Berkeley from complications from dialysis. Nearly a year later, it was publicly revealed that he had died of suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He never married and had no children.

Longtime friend and AAPA activist, Harvey Dong, served as the executor of Aoki's estate.

Posthumous revelation as an FBI informant On August 20, 2012, a report by Center for Investigative Reporting journalist Seth Rosenfeld alleged Aoki was an FBI informant who had infiltrated chapters of the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers' Party and, nearly from its inception, the Black Panther Party. In response to a FOIA request by Rosenfeld, it was revealed that a November 16, 1967, FBI intelligence report listed Aoki as an informant with the code number "T-2". Former FBI agent turned banker, Burney Threadgill Jr., also said that he worked with Aoki, stating, "He was my informant. I developed him."

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