RAFU STAFF REPORT
Mike Murase was recognized on April 14 as he celebrated his retirement from the Little Tokyo Service Center with a gathering at the Terasaki Budokan.
Murase was part of the core group who founded LTSC, served as board president for its first five years and returned in 2012 to join the executive staff.
Murase was the enthusiastic campaign director for the Terasaki Budokan, which recently marked its official opening.
Speakers, including Alan Nishio, Bill Watanabe, Yasuko Sakamoto, Budokan director Ryan Lee and social worker Vivian Lee, gave testament to Murase’s activism and leadership in the Japanese American and Black communities.
Murase moved from Japan to Los Angeles when he was just 9 years old. He was an early opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and at UCLA co-founded Gidra, a landmark Japanese American Movement publication, and also helped to create the Asian American Studies Center.
Murase was a member and leader of such seminal organizations as Asian Americans for Nuclear Disarmament, the Little Tokyo Peoples Rights Organization, the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations, Unity Los Angeles, and the California Rainbow Coalition.
He was Rev. Jesse Jackson’s deputy field coordinator and the California Asian American coordinator in Jackson’s 1984 presidential run; and the California campaign director for Jackson’s 1988 effort.
Murase served as the district director for Rep. Maxine Waters for 14 years. She joined in the festivities, and in remarks that Waters entered into the Congressional Record, she said, “He was a highly skilled manager who was also an extremely talented graphics designer, writer, public speaker, and organizer, who, utilizing all of his skill set, led and trained my staff magnificently. He knew my district well and was able to meet challenges of every type, creating positive outcomes on many levels.
“Mr. Murase was instrumental in organizing the California Rainbow Coalition after serving on the Rainbow Coalition’s national board. He was chair of the Los Angeles Free South Africa Movement from 1986 to 1990, helped Quincy Jones and myself produce the city-wide welcoming reception for Nelson Mandela attended by 79,000 people at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1990, and was an observer to the African National Congress conference in South Africa in 1991.”
Sequoia Olivia Mercier, who co-chaired the Los Angeles Free South Africa Movement with Murase, gave a poetry reading.
Ronald “Kartoon” Antwine, a Watts resident, joined by Greg Brown of Souls & Sounds of Watts and by songstress Marva Smith, read a poem he wrote for the occasion, titled “Mike, Mike, Mike.” Antwine concluded by saying:
You teach us all how to stand up
You teach us how to speak and never shut up
You taught so many how to fight
The injustice, the wrongs, negative things in life
So now you are retiring, yeah that’s a big joke
That’s like eating egg whites without the yolk
Mike, I am as serious as one can be
Take a look around, for they feel just like me
We all know you are the man
Yes, Mike, you are the man …