blog post by Genie Guerard

In January 2010, the Governor of California signed a legislative bill that established Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution on January 30 in perpetuity. This is the first state-wide day in U.S. history named after an Asian American.

In 1942, when Japanese Americans were being interned in the United States under Executive Order 9066, Mr. Korematsu refused to leave the community in Oakland where he grew up, and he was  arrested, tried and convicted in Federal Court. Despite the valiant efforts of the A.C.L.U. and others, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his conviction and held that the military orders removing Japanese Americans from the West Coast were lawful under the United States Constitution. Mr. Korematsu's case stood until 1983, when a number of documents were found which proved that the United States government suppressed, altered, and destroyed material evidence during its prosecution of Mr. Korematsu's case. Based on these documents, Mr. Korematsu, represented by a team of young lawyers, filed a petition for writ of error coram nobis, a proceeding which allows a criminal defendant to challenge his conviction based on manifest injustice. Mr. Korematsu's petition was granted.

Mr. Korematsu lived in Northern California until his passing on March 30, 2005. He is survived by his wife, Kathryn, and his two children, Karen and Ken Korematsu, who have established the Fred Korematsu Institute to perpetuate their mission, "Educating to Advance Racial Equity, Social Justice, and Human Rights for All."

Yesterday, I received a book in the mail titled, "Fred Korematsu Speaks Up." Designed for grammar school students, It is the first of Heyday's Fighting for Justice series designed by Heyday's creator, Malcolm Margolis. Thank you, Malcolm! The photos you see here are from the book, and there are more images from the book freely available online.

The UCLA Library Special Collections holds the papers of Fred Korematsu related to the Fred T. Korematsu v. United States Coram Nobis Litigation (1942-1988). as well as the papers of Jack and Aiko Herzig, whose research brought forward the evidence that re-opened the case.