Celebrating Kiyoshi Kuromiya

Today’s Doodle celebrates the inspiring life of Kiyoshi Kuromiya and the legacy of activism he left behind. He was involved in movements such as civil rights, anti-war, gay liberation, HIV/AIDS education and more. On this day in 2019, Kuromiya was inducted to the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall National Monument.

Following the outbreak of World War II and due to Executive Order 9066, Kuromiya’s parents were among the over 120,000 Japanese-Americans forcibly relocated to government prison camps (aka Japanese internment camps). Kuromiya was born in an internment camp in northern Wyoming on May 9, 1943. After the war ended, Kuromiya’s family moved to California, where as a gay Asian-American man attending a primarily Caucsian schools, he experienced what it felt like to be perceived as different. He later shared that he did not know any of the terminology around gay culture due to a lack of literature. As a result, Kuromiya utilized his public library to learn more about his identity.

He later attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and found his footing as a social activist. He was one of the few Asian Americans who participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. He also cultivated a close relationship with the Black Panther Party and championed intersectional solidarity between oppressed communities. Kuromiya participated with the Gay Pioneers in the first organized gay and lesbian civil rights demonstrations which were held at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell each Fourth of July from 1965 to 1969. During this time the Vietnam War was raging on and he brought awareness to the UPenn campus around the inhumane use of napalm and designed an influential poster protesting the draft.

When the AIDS epidemic began devastating the gay community, Kuromiya turned his  activism efforts towards awareness for the virus. He became a self-educated expert after being diagnosed with AIDS, and involved himself in groups such as ACT UP Philadelphia and People with AIDS (PWA). In 1989, he founded the Critical Path Project, the first organization to provide a 24-hour hotline for the gay community. 

In addition to being inducted to the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at Stonewall, he was named a San Francisco Rainbow Honor Walk Honoree in 2018. As a proud gay man and AIDS survivor, Kuromiya served as a vocal leader for marginalized groups and zealously fought for social justice.

Discover more about the life of prominent Japanese-American civil rights activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya, with a story from the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation on Google Arts & Culture.