By Mariko Yamada –
As Americans, we gather today across the nation to honor the power of peaceful resistance and the courage of civil discourse. Although our hearts are still heavy from the tragedy unleashed in Tucson on January 8, reflection and calm have begun to replace the chaos that engulfed us just a week ago.
Rosa Parks, one of my personal heroes, raised neither a gun nor her voice on December 1, 1955, yet ignited a mighty moral conflict that riveted our nation for over a year. The act of taking a seat in the “Whites Only” front of a public bus is a right we are incredulous did not exist just 55 years ago. The year-long bus battle ended in December 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional Alabama’s segregation in public accommodations.
As the youngest of four children born to parents who spent four years in the Manzanar War Relocation Center after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, I understand the bittersweet taste of injustice. Before their imprisonment, my parents and siblings were living a quiet life in a community near Los Angeles. The “surprise attack” changed everything. Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19, 1942 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, provided the vehicle for the mass round-up and incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry in ten wartime internment camps. A few individuals, including an Oakland longshoreman named Fred T. Korematsu, defied the evacuation order nailed on telephone poles in his neighborhood. Arrested as a fugitive, jailed, convicted and his case lost on appeal at the U.S Supreme Court, Korematsu was finally sent to an internment camp in Utah for the rest of World War II.
Decades later, the civil injustice in the Korematsu case was reversed and his conviction vacated in 1983. Last year, AB 1775 was signed into law, establishing January 30—Korematsu’s birthday—as a day of “special significance” in California. The Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education hosts its inaugural observance on Sunday, January 30, at UC Berkeley, Wheeler Auditorium. Going full circle, the keynote speaker will be the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Korematsu passed away in 2005, but like his fellow student of non-violence, Dr. King, his legacy lives on. Let us celebrate the January birthdays of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15) and Fred T. Korematsu (January 30) by rededicating ourselves to this nation’s highest ideals of peace and the pursuit of justice. We will all be the better for it.
“Protest, but not with violence, and don’t be afraid to speak up. One person can make a difference, even if it takes forty years.” – Fred T. Korematsu
Mariko Yamada is the Assemblymember from the 8th Assembly District representing much of Yolo and eastern Solano Counties. She was first elected in 2008.
“Protest, but not with violence, and don’t be afraid to speak up. One person can make a difference, even if it takes forty years.” – Fred T. Korematsu
I agree with Mariko Yamada on the point she makes in the previous quote. Right here in Yolo County people have been trying to speak up about the injustices in the Yolo County justice system. There have been several marches, letters to editors, conversations on this blog, and pleas to the county supervisors and others in government. Yet, there has been very little discourse between the leaders of this community and its citizens regarding these injustices. Just like in Yamada’s article, many of the people hurt by these injustices are minorities.
Hopefully it won’t take 40 years like Fred T. Korematsu says in his quote. Hopefully the leadership in Yolo County will choose to address these issues of injustice…instead of hoping they will just go away. Remember one person can make a differenc.
Thanks for the history lesson about Fred Korematsu.
Mariko , very nice positive article , to bad it’s on a negative blog , hopefully your article is in the Bee , or Enterprise , keep up the great work that you do !
Thanks for bringing us neglected but very valuable history. I always cringe at the lamestream media coverage that issues forth at this time every year.. exclusively happythink with utter disregard for Martin’s embracing of strong anti-war activism in his final months. So imagine my disgust at seeing this:
“..
The article concerns a speech by the Defense Department’s general counsel, Jeh C. Johnson, who stated, “I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack.”
..”
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/01/14/the-misuse-of-martin-luther-king-jr/
Please realize how twisted and vile these jingoists like Obama can really be, and demand real change from everyone in any position of power whatsoever (i.e. media.)
I was PLEASANTLY shocked to hear KQED playing superb audio from the CBC of MLK doing lectures in the studio which I’d never heard before.. in which he explains his conversion into a peace activist. (KQED’s website, lamely, doesnt even adequately notate what was on that Wednesday and there’s “no audio available” .. and CBC is super pricey as to getting their archived stuff generally.. ) I managed to find the top-notch audio in a search:
http://www.prx.org/series/31037-martin-luther-king-jr-massey-lectures
This should be on KDVS, KDRT, KXJZ, KVMR, KPFA etc, etcetera, et al and so on! Totally timely to todays events.
Also utterly germane to current events, a Pacifica 2-part broadcast not to be missed by ANYONE:
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/39753
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/39870
I just went to look up the audiofile from when Amy G played MLK’s “Beyond Vietnam” on DN some years back, and voila, a good excerpt gets played tomorrow:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/17/special_dr_martin_luther_king_jr
oh, and
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/?id=438591&t=10_awesome_things_mlk_said_that_you_won't_hear_this_weekend