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2007 WAVE Award Winners
Ruth Bechford
 Ruth Bechford began dancing at age three and is currently celebrating over 67 years in the performing arts. Early in her career she toured with the legendary Katherine Dunham and later taught at the Katherine Dunham School. Ruth became the first African-American member of the Orchesis Modern Honor Society at the University of California, Berkeley and founded the first recreational modern dance department in the United States at the Oakland Department of Parks and Recreation. In 1990, she turned her attention toward serving the less fortunate members of society, counseling homeless people at the Berkeley office of the Department of Social Services. In 1997, she became a life skills counselor at the Oakland Private Industry Council and, in 2000, became president of the African American Museum Library Coalition. Throughout her very rich and influential career, Ms. Beckford has mentored a number of successful women, whom she terms “her many daughters”, who have gone on to become professors, artists and distinguished community members. She continues to touch the lives of both men and women through her community work in Oakland, the very place she was born and continues to reside today.
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Yuri Kochiyama
 Yuri Kochiyama born in California, was sent along with her family to an internment camp immediately following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Yuri’s internment in an Arkansas camp allowed her to see the similarities between the treatment of Japanese Americans and Blacks in the Jim Crowe South. Since then she has championed civil rights through her activism and leadership in several civil rights organizations. In the 1960’s she was a member of the Harlem Parents Committee organizing protests for more street lights in her neighborhood. She was a close friend of Malcolm X and became a member of his Organization for Afro-American Unity. She was by his side at his assassination in 1965. Over the years, she has dedicated her efforts to issues of peace and social justice including international political prisoner rights, nuclear disarmament, and Japanese redress for World War II internment. Ms. Kochiyama is recognized among communities of color as a distinguished activist, who continues to this day to educate and speak on social justice issues.
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Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez
 Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez, a social justice activist and organizer for over 45 years, she has published 6 books and many articles on popular struggles in the Americas including Letters from Mississippi, The Youngest Revolution: A Personal Report on Cuba, 500 Years of Chicano History and De Colores Means All Of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century. In the 1960s she worked fulltime for Black Civil rights with the Students Nonviolent coordinating Committee (SNCC) as one of the two Chicanas on staff, and later with the Chicano/a struggle in New Mexico as an organizer and editor of a movement newspaper for eight years. Based on that combined experience, she co-founded and now directs the institute for Multi-Racial Justice, a resource center to help build alliances between peoples of color. She ran for Governor of California in 1982 on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket, and has won many awards for service and leadership including NACCS Scholar for 2000, and an honorary doctorate. She has guest-lectured on dozens of campuses nationwide, has taught on Latinas/os in the California State University system as an adjunct Professor, and works with activist youth groups. In 2005, she was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize as one of 1000 women nominated from 150 countries.
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