An inspirational story of a civil rights leader: 

THE ENDURING LEGACY OF FRED KOREMATSU 

Korematsu was born on January 30, 1919, to Japanese parents who ran a plant nursery in Oakland, California. He worked as a shipyard welder after graduating from high school until he lost his job after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was 22 when the U.S. plunged into war. On May 9, 1942, his parents and three brothers reported to the Tanforan Assembly Center, but Korematsu stayed behind with his Italian-American girlfriend. By then, the army had issued a series of exclusion orders that prohibited Japanese Americans from being inside Military Area No. 1. In an attempt to disguise his racial identity, he changed his name and had minor plastic surgery on his eyes to appear European American. His refusal to comply with the evacuation order led to his arrest on May 30, 1942.

While in jail, he was visited by Ernest Besig, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. Korematsu agreed to become the subject of a test case to challenge the constitutionality of President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 along with fellow resisters Min Yasui and Gordon Hirabayashi. Although Besig paid Korematsu’s $5,000 bail, Korematsu was sent to Tanforan immediately after his release. After the federal district court in San Francisco found him guilty of violating military orders, his court case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1944. The high court upheld the lower court’s ruling in a 6-3 vote. (See Korematsu vs. U.S.)

In the 1980s, legal historian and author Peter Irons filed a petition to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court in San Francisco to have Korematsu’s conviction overturned on the grounds that the Supreme Court had made its decision based on false information. Korematsu spoke at the courtroom and said, “As long as my record stands in federal court, any American citizen can be held in prison or concentration camps without a trial or a hearing.” In November 1983, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel vacated Korematsu’s conviction and argued that the Korematsu case serves as a “caution that in times of distress the shield of military necessity and national security must not be used to protect governmental actions from close scrutiny and accountability….”[1]

After the successful coram nobis petition, Korematsu continued to advocate for civil rights at countless colleges and law schools. In 1999, he received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honoBANENDr. After 9/11, he filed an amicus—or “friend of the court”—brief with the Supreme Court for two cases on behalf of Muslim inmates being held at Guantanamo Bay. He filed another amicus brief in 2004, citing similarities between the wrongful imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II and Muslims following 9/11. He passed away of respiratory illness on March 30, 2005.

On January 30, 2011, California held its first Fred Korematsu Day, the first day in the U.S. to be named after an Asian American, commemorating his lifetime of service defending the constitutional rights of Americans.

Fred’s legacy continues to live on through the work of his daughter, Karen, and the Fred T. Korematsu Institute. Through educational programs and annual Fred Korematsu Day events, the Institute increases awareness of “one of the most blatant forms of racial profiling in U.S. history, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.” Karen Korematsu carries on her father’s legacy through continued engagement with contemporary civil rights issues. This year’s Korematsu Day celebration addresses the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment through the theme, Re(ad)dressing Racial Injustice: From Japanese American Incarceration to Anti-Muslim Bigotry. In the future, the Institute plans to lobby for a national commemorative holiday recognizing Fred Korematsu, who would be the first Asian American to have a national holiday, and to create a museum/library learning center.

In 2015, Lorraine K. Bannai, a member of the legal team that successfully challenged Fred Korematsu’s conviction, published Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice. George Takei endorsed the book—and Fred—saying, “A remarkable story of a man who stood up and spoke out in the same tradition of others in this country who have spoken out against oppression and discrimination…Fred Korematsu was an ordinary man who did extraordinary deeds and with that he made history.”

John Donne (1572-1631), 

Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, 

Meditation XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris:

"Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
...
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

Donne lived in Tudor and Stewart England, and at that time the tolling of church bells to mark various events was an important feature of daily life. The tolling referred to in the quotation is, of course, that of funeral bells. Donne's view, which has, oddly for a 17th century Christian, much in common with 21st century eastern religions, was that all people are socially and spiritually interconnected; for example, the contemporary Buddhist view is demonstrated by the reply given by the Dalai Lama, when asked during a visit to Northern Ireland how the warring Protestants and Catholics could co-exist: "Remember we are all one - all the same". Donne seems to be saying that whatever affects one affects us all. This is highlighted by the famous 'no man is an island' line at the beginning of the 'for whom the bells tolls' paragraph.

Donne's Meditations concern man's spiritual and social functioning, especially with regard to illness and death. They are somewhat mystical and difficult to interpret, especially without the benefit of experience of the nuances of the social and religious sensibilities of a 17th century Englishman. It is a testament to Donne's insight that the work contains much that strikes deep chords with people living and dying today.

There's some debate about what precisely what was meant. Some think that Donne was simply pointing out people's mortality and that when a funeral bell was heard it was a reminder that we are nearer death each day, that is, the bell is tolling for us. Others view it more mystically and argue that Donne is saying we are all one and that, when one dies, we all die a little. This isn't as bleak as it might sound, as the counterpoint would be that there is some part of the living in the dead and that we continue a form of life after death.

Ernest Hemingway helped to make the phrase commonplace in the language when he chose to use the quotation for the title of his 1940-published book about the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway refers back to 'for whom the bells tolls' and to 'no man is an island' to demonstrate and examine his feelings of solidarity with the allied groups fighting the fascists. There was a strong feeling amongst many intellectuals around the world at the time that it was a moral duty to fight fascism, which they feared may take root world-wide if not checked. 

This view was given voice later in the well-known poem First They Came for the Jews, attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller:




Hemingway adapted the novel as the screenplay to a successful 1943 film of the same title, starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman.

The shabad teaches us to live with courage and bravery to the highest levels of righteousness. It teaches us to never shirk from conducting oneself in the most upright and considerate possible manner and to be prepared at all times to willingly and consistently behave in the most impartial and just manner and to always undertake to carry out righteous acts; to never have any fear or show even the slightest hesitation when taking such actions; to never flinch from stepping in front of the enemy to protect the poor, weak and needy of the world - to never have any apprehension or anxiety from the righteous fight ahead.

 

Read More: Complete Babarvani