After graduating from Tohoku Imperial University in 1933, Kuroda was sent to Manchukuo to be an instructor at a service academy.
He spent five years in a Siberian labor camp before he returned to Japan in 1950, and became a professor of law at Osaka City University in 1956.
In 1975, he became the first governor who won reelection with backing only from the Japanese Communist Party.
While he was in office, Kuroda took positive antipollution measures and introduced free medical care for the elderly.
[1] He rejected a plan to build a missile base in Osaka, for he held a view that the Self-Defense Forces were unconstitutional.