Fred Korematsu ‘Stood Strong Against Anti-Asian Prejudice in the U.S.’

After the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt authorized the detention of people of Japanese ancestry. When Fred Korematsu, who died Wednesday at 86, refused to obey the order, he was arrested, convicted and sent to an internment camp. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction.

The following excerpts tell the story of his case.

Dec. 18, 1944. Justice Hugo Black delivered the opinion in Korematsu vs. U.S.

It is said that we are dealing here with the case of imprisonment of a citizen in a concentration camp solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition toward the United States. Our task would be simple, our duty clear, were this a case involving the imprisonment of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because of racial prejudice. Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and relocation centers -- and we deem it unjustifiable to call them concentration camps with all the ugly connotations that term implies -- we are dealing specifically with nothing but an exclusion order. To cast this case into outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers which were presented, merely confuses the issue.

Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and finally, because Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders -- as inevitably it must -- determined that they should have the power to do just this. There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot -- by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight -- now say that at that time these actions were unjustified.

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Nov. 10, 1983. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel vacated Korematsu’s conviction.

Korematsu [vs. U.S.] remains on the pages of our legal and political history. As a legal precedent it is now recognized as having very limited application. As historical precedent it stands as a constant caution that in time of war or declared military necessity our institutions must be vigilant in protecting constitutional guarantees. It stands 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.

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Jan. 15, 1998. Korematsu was awarded the Medal of Freedom. The citation follows:

An American who wanted only to be treated like every other American, Fred Korematsu challenged our nation’s conscience, reminding us that we must uphold the rights of our own citizens even as we fight tyranny in other lands. Defying the 1942 order for the internment of Japanese Americans, he stood strong against anti-Asian prejudice in the United States during World War II. Convicted of violating the order, he waited more than 40 years for justice, when a federal court overturned the judgment that the Supreme Court first upheld against him.... Fred Korematsu deserves our respect and thanks for his patient pursuit to preserve the civil liberties we hold dear.