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Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu (是松豊三郎, Korematsu Toyosaburo; January 30, 1919 – March 30, 2005) was an American civil rights activist who resisted the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Shortly after the Imperial Japanese Navy launched its attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal of individuals of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast from their homes and their mandatory imprisonment in incarceration camps. Korematsu challenged the order and became a fugitive.

Key Information

The legality of Roosevelt's order was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Korematsu v. United States (1944).[1] However, Korematsu's conviction for evading internment was overturned four decades later in US District Court, after the disclosure of new evidence challenging its necessity, which had been withheld from the courts by the U.S. government during the war.[2] Korematsu was discussed seventy-four years later in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), with Chief Justice John Roberts writing: "The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority."[3][4] Legal scholars differ as to whether this statement actually overturned Korematsu or was merely a "disapproving dictum" of it.[5]

To commemorate his journey as a civil rights activist posthumously, "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution" was observed for the first time on his 92nd birthday, January 30, 2011, by the state of California, the first such commemoration for an Asian American in the United States. In 2015, Virginia passed legislation to make it the second state to permanently recognize each January 30 as Fred Korematsu Day.[6][7][8]

The Fred T. Korematsu Institute was founded in 2009 to carry on Korematsu's legacy as a civil rights advocate by educating and advocating for civil liberties for all communities.

Youth

[edit]

Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was born in Oakland, California, on January 30, 1919, the third of four sons to Japanese parents Kakusaburo Korematsu and Kotsui Aoki, who immigrated to the United States in 1905.[9] Korematsu resided continuously in Oakland from his birth until the time of his arrest. He attended public schools, participated in the Castlemont High School (Oakland, California) tennis and swim teams, and worked in his family's flower nursery in nearby San Leandro, California. He encountered racism in high school when a U.S. Army recruiting officer was handing out recruiting flyers to Korematsu's non-Japanese friends. The officer told Korematsu, "We have orders not to accept you."[10] Even his girlfriend Ida Boitano's Italian parents felt that people of Japanese descent were inferior and unfit to mix with white people.[11]

World War II

[edit]

When called for military duty under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, Korematsu was formally rejected by the U.S. Navy due to stomach ulcers, but it is believed that he was truly rejected on the basis of his Japanese descent.[12] Instead, he trained to become a welder in order to contribute his services to the defense effort. First, he worked as a welder at a shipyard. He went in one day to find his timecard missing; his coworkers hastily explained to him that he was Japanese so therefore he was not allowed to work there. He then found a new job, but was fired after a week when his supervisor returned from an extended vacation and found him working there.[11] Because of his Japanese descent, Korematsu lost all employment completely following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

On March 27, 1942, General John L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Area, prohibited Japanese Americans from leaving the limits of Military Area No. 1,[a] in preparation for their eventual evacuation to internment camps.[14] Korematsu underwent plastic surgery on his eyelids in an unsuccessful attempt to pass as a Caucasian, changed his name to Clyde Sarah[15][16] and claimed to be of Spanish and Hawaiian heritage.[17]

Former horse stalls converted for temporary occupation by Japanese American internees at Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, California, 1942

When on May 3, 1942, General DeWitt ordered Japanese Americans to report on May 9 to Assembly Centers as a prelude to being removed to the internment camps,[b] Korematsu refused and went into hiding in the Oakland area. He was arrested on a street corner in San Leandro on May 30, 1942, and held at a jail in San Francisco.[19] Shortly after Korematsu's arrest, Ernest Besig, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union in northern California, asked him whether he would be willing to use his case to test the legality of the Japanese American internment. Korematsu agreed, and was assigned civil rights attorney Wayne M. Collins.[20] The national ACLU argued for Besig, its own district director, not to fight Korematsu's case, as many high-ranking members of the ACLU were close to President Roosevelt and the ACLU did not want to be viewed negatively during a time of war. Besig decided to take Korematsu's case despite this.[21]

Korematsu felt that "people should have a fair trial and a chance to defend their loyalty at court in a democratic way, because in this situation, people were placed in imprisonment without any fair trial".[22] On June 12, 1942, Korematsu received his trial date and was given $5,000 bail (equivalent to $96,222 in 2024). After Korematsu's arraignment on June 18, 1942, Besig posted bail and he and Korematsu attempted to leave. When met by military police, Besig told Korematsu to go with them. The military police took Korematsu to the Presidio.[23] Korematsu was tried and convicted in federal court on September 8, 1942, for a violation of Public Law No. 503, which criminalized the violations of military orders issued under the authority of Executive Order 9066, and was placed on five years' probation. He was taken from the courtroom and returned to the Tanforan Assembly Center, and thereafter he and his family were placed in the Central Utah War Relocation Center in Topaz, Utah.[24] As an unskilled laborer, he was eligible to receive only $12 per month (equivalent to $230.93 in 2024) for working eight-hour days at the camp. He was placed in a horse stall with a single light bulb, and later said "jail was better than this".[25]

Tanforan Assembly Center, line to mess hall

Korematsu's actions were both hailed and criticized. Many Japanese residents living on the West Coast cooperated with the government internment order, hoping to prove their loyalty as Americans, including members of the Japanese American Citizens League. Korematsu was thus disdained for his opposition to a government order, and was even seen as a threat in the eyes of many Japanese Americans. When Korematsu's family was moved to the Topaz internment camp, he later recalled feeling isolated because his imprisoned compatriots recognized him and many, if not most, of them felt that if they talked to him they would also be seen as troublemakers.[26]

Korematsu then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which granted review on March 27, 1943, but upheld the original verdict on January 7, 1944. He appealed again and brought his case to the United States Supreme Court, which granted review on March 27, 1944. On December 18, 1944, in a 6–3 decision authored by Justice Hugo Black, the Court held that compulsory exclusion, though constitutionally suspect, was justified during circumstances of "emergency and peril".[c]

However, the Court also decided Ex parte Endo in December 1944 to grant Mitsuye Endo her liberty from the camps because the Department of Justice and War Relocation Authority conceded that Endo was a "loyal and law-abiding citizen" and that no authority existed for detaining loyal citizens longer than necessary to separate the loyal from the disloyal. Endo's case did not address the question of whether the initial removal itself was constitutional, as did Korematsu's case.[d]

Later adult life and compensation

[edit]
Fred Korematsu and family

After being released from the camp in Utah, Korematsu had to move east since the law would not allow former internees to move back westward. He moved to Salt Lake City, Utah,[28] where he continued to fight racism. He still knew there were inequalities among the Japanese, since he experienced them in his everyday life. He found work repairing water tanks in Salt Lake City, but after three months on the job, he discovered he was being paid half of what his white coworkers were being paid. He told his boss that this was unfair and asked to be paid the same amount, but his boss only threatened to call the police and try to get him arrested just for being Japanese, so he left his job.[29] After this incident, Korematsu lost hope, remaining quiet for over thirty years. His own daughter did not find out about what her father did until she was in high school.[30] Peter Irons said that Korematsu "felt responsible for the internment in a sort of backhanded way, because his case had been lost in the Supreme Court."[31] He moved to Detroit, Michigan, where his younger brother lived, and where he worked as a draftsman until 1949. He married Kathryn Pearson in Detroit on October 12, 1946. They returned to Oakland to visit his family in 1949 because his mother was ill. They did not intend to stay, but decided to after Kathryn became pregnant with their first child, Karen.[32] His daughter was born in 1950, and a son, Ken, in 1954.[33]

In 1976, President Gerald Ford signed a proclamation formally terminating Executive Order 9066 and apologizing for the internment, stated: "We now know what we should have known then—not only was that evacuation wrong but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans. On the battlefield and at home the names of Japanese-Americans have been and continue to be written in history for the sacrifices and the contributions they have made to the well-being and to the security of this, our common Nation."[34] In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed a special commission to investigate the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, which concluded that the decisions to remove those of Japanese ancestry to prison camps occurred because of "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership". In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which had been sponsored by Representative Norman Mineta and Senator Alan K. Simpson. It provided financial redress of $20,000 for each surviving detainee, totaling $1.2 billion.

In the early 1980s, while researching a book on internment cases, lawyer and University of California, San Diego professor Peter Irons came across evidence that Charles Fahy, the Solicitor General of the United States who argued Korematsu v. United States before the Supreme Court, had deliberately suppressed reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and military intelligence which concluded that Japanese-American citizens posed no security risk. [citation needed] These documents revealed that the military had lied to the Supreme Court and that government lawyers had willingly made false arguments. [citation needed] Irons concluded that the Supreme Court's decision was invalid since it was based on unsubstantiated assertions, distortions and misrepresentations. [citation needed] Along with a team of lawyers headed by Dale Minami, Irons petitioned for writs of error coram nobis with the federal courts, seeking to overturn Korematsu's conviction.[35]

Korematsu at a press conference regarding the coram nobis petitioned for with the federal courts

On November 10, 1983, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of U.S. District Court in San Francisco formally vacated the conviction. Korematsu testified before Judge Patel, "I would like to see the government admit that they were wrong and do something about it so this will never happen again to any American citizen of any race, creed, or color."[36] He also said, "If anyone should do any pardoning, I should be the one pardoning the government for what they did to the Japanese-American people."[37] Irons described Korematsu's ending statement during the case as the most powerful statement he'd ever heard from anyone. He found the statement as empowering as Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech.[38] Judge Patel's ruling cleared Korematsu's name, but was incapable of overturning the Supreme Court's decision.

President Bill Clinton awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, to Korematsu in 1998, saying, "In the long history of our country's constant search for justice, some names of ordinary citizens stand for millions of souls: Plessy, Brown, Parks ... to that distinguished list, today we add the name of Fred Korematsu." That year, Korematsu served as the Grand Marshal of San Francisco's annual Cherry Blossom Festival parade.[39]

A member and Elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, Korematsu was twice President of the San Leandro Lions Club, and for 15 years a volunteer with Boy Scouts of America, San Francisco Bay Council.[40] In 1988, the Alameda County Bar Association presented Korematsu with the American Bar Association Liberty Bell Award.

Korematsu spoke out after September 11, 2001, on how the United States government should not let the same thing happen to people of Middle Eastern descent as what happened to Japanese Americans. When prisoners were detained at Guantanamo Bay for too long a period, in Korematsu's opinion, he filed two amicus curiae briefs with the Supreme Court and warned them not to repeat the mistakes of the Japanese internment.[41]

He wrote the first of these amicus briefs in October 2003 for two cases appealed before the Supreme Court of the United States, Shafiq Rasul v. George W. Bush and Khaled A.F. Al Odah v. United States of America. Attorneys Arturo J. Gonzalez and Sylvia M. Sokol of Morrison & Foerster LLP, and Jon B. Streeter and Eumi K. Lee of Keker & Van Nest LLP, worked on the amicus curiae brief. In the brief, Korematsu warned the Supreme Court that the restriction of civil liberties can never be justified, and had never been justified in the history of the United States. Furthermore, Korematsu provided examples of specific cases in American history in which the government exceeded constitutional authority, including the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and the Japanese internment of World War II. Korematsu thus reacted critically to the administration of President George W. Bush, who imprisoned detainees in Guantanamo Bay by restricting their civil liberties albeit in a time of, according to the respondent, "military necessity".

Korematsu during interview with 60 Minutes

Similarly, in his second amicus brief, written in April 2004 with the Bar Association of San Francisco, the Asian Law Caucus, the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach and the Japanese American Citizens League, Korematsu responded to Donald Rumsfeld v. Jose Padilla. The following attorneys worked on the amicus brief: Geoffrey R. Stone and Dale Minami of Minami, Lew, and Tamaki LLP; Eric K. Yamamoto, Stephen J. Schulhofer of the Brennan Center for Justice; and Evan R. Chesler of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. The amici curiae's statement of interest emphasized the similarity of the unlawful detainment of Fred Korematsu during World War II and that of Jose Padilla following the events of 9/11, and warned the American government of repeating mistakes of the past. He believed that "full vindication for the Japanese-Americans will arrive only when we learn that, even in times of crisis, we must guard against prejudice and keep uppermost our commitment to law and justice."[42]

From 2001 until his death, Korematsu served on the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee.[43] Discussing racial profiling in 2004, he warned, "No one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy."

Death

[edit]
Fred Korematsu's grave at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California; an enlarged replica of the Presidential Medal of Freedom is displayed on his tombstone.

Fred Korematsu died of respiratory failure at his daughter's home in Marin County, California, on March 30, 2005. One of the last things Korematsu said was, "I'll never forget my government treating me like this. And I really hope that this will never happen to anybody else because of the way they look, if they look like the enemy of our country."[38] He also urged others to "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."[44] Korematsu was buried at the Mountain View Cemetery.

Legacy

[edit]

The Fred T. Korematsu Institute carries Korematsu's name to continue his work with teachers and community leaders across the country to promote Korematsu's fight for justice and civil liberties.[6]

The Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at the University of California, Irvine School of Law honors Korematsu's legacy through "research, advocacy and education initiatives that promote racial equity and social justice"[45] and houses The Defender Initiative and the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project.

On May 24, 2011, U.S. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal delivered the keynote speech at the Department of Justice's Great Hall marking Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Developing comments he had posted officially on May 20,[46] Katyal issued the Justice Department's first public confession of its 1942 ethics lapse. He cited the Korematsu case and the similar precedent of Gordon Hirabayashi as blots on the reputation of the Office of the Solicitor General, which aspires to deserve "special credence" when pleading cases before the Supreme Court, and thus "an important reminder" of the need for absolute candor in arguing the United States government's position on every case.[47]

In 2018, in Trump v. Hawaii, the Supreme Court expressly declared that Korematsu's case was wrongly decided and "morally repugnant", but did not formally overrule it.[4]

Other dedications and honors include the following:

Exterior of the San Leandro High School Fred T. Korematsu Campus
  • The auxiliary campus at San Leandro High School is named the Fred T. Korematsu Campus in honor of Korematsu.[49]
  • The Discovery Academy elementary school in Oakland, California, was renamed Fred T. Korematsu Discovery Academy.[50]
  • Portola Middle School was renamed The Fred T Korematsu Middle School in El Cerrito, California, at the new campus location formerly Castro Elementary School site.[51]
  • In 1988, a street in San Jose, California was renamed Korematsu Court.[52][e]
  • There is a Korematsu bronze relief in front of the San Jose Federal Building.
  • Awards in his name include the Alameda County Bar Association's ABA Liberty Bell Award and the American Muslim Voices Korematsu Civil Rights Award.[53]
  • On September 23, 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California signed into law a bill that designates January 30 of each year as the Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, a first for an Asian American in the United States.[8] It was observed for the first time on January 30, 2011. The main celebration of the California state was held at the Wheeler Auditorium on the University of California, Berkeley campus, sponsored by the Korematsu Institute, a non-profit program co-founded by Korematsu's daughter Karen Korematsu to advance racial equity, social justice, and human rights[54] as well as the Asian Law Caucus, a San Francisco-based civil rights organization. The event included presentations by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and a screening of the Emmy Award-winning film Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story.[7][8][55]
  • In 2015, the Commonwealth of Virginia established January 30 as "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution" beginning in 2016.[56]
  • Since 2010, Hawaii, Utah, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Michigan and Florida have all commemorated "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution".[57]
  • Korematsu was the first Asian American featured in "The Struggle for Justice", a permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.[58]
  • On January 30, 2017, to commemorate what would have been his 98th birthday, Korematsu was honored with a front-page Google Doodle.[59]
  • On December 19, 2017, the New York City Council unanimously passed a resolution establishing January 30 annually as Fred T. Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. The resolution's main sponsor was Council Member Daniel Dromm of Queens.[60]
  • On October 27, 2021, Korematsu posthumously received the Freedom Medal from the Roosevelt Institute.[61][62]

See also

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Notes

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References

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Further reading

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[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Fred Korematsu

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Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu (January 30, 1919 – March 30, 2005) was an American of Japanese descent who, at age 23, refused to comply with Executive Order 9066 requiring Japanese Americans on the West Coast to report for exclusion and relocation amid fears of espionage following the Pearl Harbor attack.[1][2] Arrested and convicted for violating the order, Korematsu appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in Korematsu v. United States (1944) upheld the exclusion as a valid exercise of wartime authority to prevent potential sabotage, deferring to military judgment despite dissenting concerns over racial prejudice.[2][3] In 1983, a federal district court vacated his conviction via a writ of coram nobis after newly disclosed evidence revealed government suppression of intelligence assessments showing no Japanese American involvement in espionage or sabotage, constituting fraud on the court.[2][4] Korematsu later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 for his persistent advocacy for civil liberties.[5]

Early Life

Birth and Family

Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was born on January 30, 1919, in Oakland, California, to Japanese immigrant parents Kakusaburo Korematsu and Kotsui Aoki.[6][7] His father had immigrated from Japan to Hawaii in 1905 as a farm laborer before moving to California, where the family established a floral nursery business.[8] Korematsu was the third of four sons, and the siblings assisted their parents in operating the nursery, which contributed to the family's livelihood in the Oakland area.[7][9]

Pre-War Experiences

Korematsu grew up in Oakland, California, assisting his parents in their flower nursery business, which supplied wreaths and floral arrangements.[7] He attended local public elementary and junior high schools before enrolling at Castlemont High School, from which he graduated in 1937.[10] At Castlemont, he participated in extracurricular activities, including membership on the tennis and swimming teams.[11] After high school, Korematsu trained as a welder and secured employment at a shipyard in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he worked until December 1941.[12] [13] He also contributed to the family nursery located in San Leandro, reflecting the economic roles typical of second-generation Japanese Americans in California's agricultural and service sectors during the interwar period.[14] These experiences exposed him to routine anti-Japanese discrimination, including barriers to higher education and certain professions, amid broader societal prejudices against Asian immigrants and their descendants.[15]

World War II Context and Resistance

Pearl Harbor and Internment Policy

The attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese naval forces on December 7, 1941, prompted immediate security measures against perceived threats from Japanese residents and citizens in the United States.[16] In the ensuing weeks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other agencies arrested over 3,000 individuals suspected of subversion, with approximately half being of Japanese ancestry, primarily alien immigrants classified as "enemy aliens" under wartime laws.[16] These actions reflected heightened fears of espionage and sabotage amid public hysteria on the West Coast, where about 112,000 people of Japanese descent resided, though intelligence assessments by the FBI and Office of Naval Intelligence found no evidence of organized disloyalty among them.[16] On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War to designate "military areas" from which any or all persons could be excluded to prevent espionage and sabotage.[17] The order did not explicitly name Japanese Americans but empowered military commanders, such as Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, to implement restrictions targeting them based on ancestry, leading to the designation of the entire West Coast as a theater of operations.[17] DeWitt's subsequent proclamations imposed curfews, froze assets, and mandated evacuation, affecting roughly 120,000 individuals of Japanese descent—about two-thirds U.S. citizens—without individual hearings or evidence of threat.[18] This policy was justified at the time by military concerns over potential fifth-column activities, despite lacking empirical support from prior intelligence, which had identified only isolated risks among immigrant leaders rather than the broader population.[16] Implementation involved initial assembly in temporary centers like racetracks and fairgrounds, followed by relocation to ten inland camps operated by the War Relocation Authority, where internees faced barbed wire, armed guards, and loss of property and livelihoods.[18] The policy's causal basis rested on racial profiling rather than individualized suspicion, as affirmed by DeWitt's reports emphasizing Japanese ancestry as inherently unassimilable and disloyal, a view echoed by West Coast congressional delegations but contradicted by the absence of any documented sabotage by Japanese Americans during the war.[16] Subsequent investigations, including the 1980s Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, determined the measures stemmed from racial prejudice and war hysteria rather than military necessity, with no prosecutions for espionage among the evacuees.[16]

Defiance of Evacuation Order

Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu, a 23-year-old American-born welder of Japanese ancestry residing near San Leandro, California, faced Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, issued on May 3, 1942, which mandated that all persons of Japanese descent in Military Area No. 1 evacuate to the Tanforan Assembly Center by May 9, 1942.[9] [2] His parents and siblings complied with the order and reported to Tanforan, a former racetrack converted into a temporary detention facility.[1] [7] Korematsu deliberately refused to report, viewing the exclusion as a violation of his rights as a U.S. citizen who had never been to Japan and held no allegiance to its government.[3] [19] To evade detection, he altered his appearance through minor plastic surgery on his eyelids, shortened his name to "Fred Toyo," and obtained forged identification under the pseudonym Gerry Kumura, allowing him to continue employment at a shipyard.[15] He also maintained a relationship with Ida Boitano, a woman of Italian descent, citing personal ties and his American identity as factors in his decision to remain in the area rather than submit to relocation.[15] [8] This act of noncompliance stemmed from Korematsu's conviction that the mass evacuation, enacted under Executive Order 9066 without individualized evidence of threat, infringed on constitutional protections against racial discrimination and deprivation of liberty.[20] His defiance represented one of the few public challenges to the policy amid widespread compliance, driven by fear of separation from community and property rather than any demonstrated disloyalty, as later government admissions confirmed no sabotage by Japanese Americans justified the measures.[9] [2]

Arrest and Conviction

Following the issuance of Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 on May 8, 1942, which required all persons of Japanese ancestry in portions of Alameda County, California—including San Leandro—to report for evacuation by May 23, Fred Korematsu deliberately refused to comply, viewing the orders as unconstitutional discrimination motivated by race rather than military necessity.[2][7] He had previously attempted to relocate eastward but returned to the area to remain with his non-Japanese American fiancée, Ida Boitano, adopting the alias "Clyde Sarah" and undergoing minor facial surgery to evade identification as Japanese American.[9][7] On May 30, 1942, while walking with Boitano on a street in San Leandro, Korematsu was recognized and arrested by a local police officer for violating the exclusion order and curfew restrictions under Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt's proclamations implementing Executive Order 9066.[1][19] He was initially detained in the Alameda County Jail before transfer to the Presidio stockade in San Francisco and subsequently to Tanforan Assembly Center on June 12, 1942.[1][21] Formal charges were filed against Korematsu on June 12, 1942, for remaining in a military exclusion zone in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 97a, a statute criminalizing disobedience of military orders during wartime.[21] He was tried in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, where on September 8, 1942, Judge Louis E. Goodman convicted him of the misdemeanor charge, sentencing him to five years' probation; however, Korematsu was immediately remanded to custody at Tanforan pending appeal, effectively initiating his incarceration despite the probationary term.[2][7] The American Civil Liberties Union filed the appeal on his behalf to challenge the constitutionality of the exclusion orders.[2]

Legal Battle

Appeal to Supreme Court

Korematsu's conviction for violating the military exclusion order was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the district court's ruling in Toyosaburo Korematsu v. United States, 140 F.2d 289 (9th Cir. 1943), emphasizing judicial deference to executive wartime actions.[22] The Ninth Circuit rejected Korematsu's primary contention that the exclusion order under Executive Order 9066 constituted unconstitutional racial discrimination, instead viewing it as a permissible national security measure amid perceived threats of espionage and sabotage.[22] Following the Ninth Circuit's affirmance, Korematsu's legal team, including attorney Wayne M. Collins, filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court, highlighting the case's constitutional implications regarding due process under the Fifth Amendment and equal protection principles.[2] The Supreme Court granted certiorari on March 27, 1944, consolidating the case with related challenges to wartime restrictions on Japanese Americans.[21] Oral arguments before the Supreme Court occurred on October 11 and 12, 1944, where Korematsu's counsel argued that the exclusion order infringed on fundamental rights by targeting citizens based solely on ancestry, without evidence of individual disloyalty, and violated the Fifth Amendment's protections against deprivation of liberty without due process.[3] The government countered that the measures were justified by military necessity in a theater of war, deferring to the judgment of military commanders as articulated in prior rulings like Hirabayashi v. United States.[3]

Korematsu v. United States Decision

In Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision on December 18, 1944, upholding by a 6-3 vote the conviction of Fred Korematsu for defying Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, which required the evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from designated military areas on the West Coast.[3] [23] The majority opinion, authored by Justice Hugo Black and joined by Chief Justice Stone and Justices Reed, Douglas, Rutledge, and Frankfurter (the latter concurring separately), affirmed that Korematsu's violation constituted remaining in a restricted zone contrary to military orders issued under Executive Order 9066 and authorizing statutes.[24] [2] Justice Black's opinion acknowledged that "all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect" and subject to "the most rigid scrutiny," but concluded that the exclusion order met this standard due to the "pressing public necessity" of wartime conditions following the attack on Pearl Harbor.[23] [2] The Court deferred to the judgment of military commanders, as evidenced by affidavits from General John L. DeWitt asserting that the presence of Japanese Americans posed risks of espionage and sabotage amid "public hostility" and the "imminence of invasion," conditions the justices deemed justified compulsory relocation despite its racial basis. [23] Black emphasized that the order was not punishment but a preventive measure, distinguishing it from prior precedents like Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943), and rejected challenges under the Fifth Amendment's due process clause by prioritizing national security over individual rights in extremis.[3] [23] The dissenting justices—Owen J. Roberts, Frank Murphy, and Robert H. Jackson—argued that the exclusion rested on racial prejudice rather than substantiated military necessity.[25] [26] Justice Roberts contended in his dissent that Korematsu was convicted for an act—remaining in his home—that the government had not proven inherently dangerous, and that DeWitt's rationale explicitly invoked racial ancestry as the disqualifying factor, rendering the order unconstitutional on its face.[25] [23] Justice Murphy described the decision as a "legalization of racism" inconsistent with American principles, noting the absence of empirical evidence linking Japanese Americans broadly to disloyalty, with military reports showing no sabotage by them despite opportunities, and decrying the policy as "utterly revolting" under the Equal Protection Clause incorporated via the Fifth Amendment.[25] [26] Justice Jackson, while accepting the military's authority in war, warned that judicial endorsement of such racial classifications created a dangerous precedent, arguing it was preferable to tolerate unconstitutional executive actions temporarily than to validate them, as future conflicts could invoke the ruling to justify similar discriminations.[25] [23]

Wartime Imprisonment

Following his arrest on May 30, 1942, for violating Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, Fred Korematsu was detained at the Presidio Stockade in San Francisco before being transferred to the Tanforan Assembly Center on June 18, 1942.[21][1] Tanforan, a repurposed racetrack in San Bruno, California, functioned as a temporary assembly center for Japanese Americans from the San Francisco Bay Area, housing up to 7,816 individuals in converted horse stalls partitioned into small family units.[1][27] Internees endured communal mess halls, shared latrines without dividers, and limited privacy, with daily life marked by long lines for meals and inadequate medical facilities amid the facility's six-month operation from April 28 to October 13, 1942.[28] In early October 1942, Korematsu was relocated along with other Tanforan residents to the Topaz War Relocation Center (also known as the Central Utah Relocation Center) near Delta, Utah, arriving as part of the mass transfer to permanent sites.[29] Topaz spanned 19,000 acres in a high-desert environment, accommodating over 8,000 internees in 42 blocks of barracks surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers, where temperatures fluctuated from sub-zero winters to scorching summers accompanied by frequent dust storms.[29][30] Korematsu, having undergone plastic surgery prior to his arrest to alter his appearance, faced social isolation at Topaz, as fellow internees recognized him as the individual whose defiance had drawn scrutiny to the community; he later described working in camp maintenance while his legal appeals proceeded.[7] Korematsu remained at Topaz throughout the war, serving out the period of enforced confinement without incident related to his conviction, which had resulted in a suspended sentence following his guilty plea in federal court.[2] The camp provided basic employment opportunities, such as farming and factory work, but internees experienced substandard housing with thin walls offering little insulation, communal bathing, and restricted movement, contributing to health issues including respiratory problems from dust inhalation.[28][30] Topaz operated until October 1945, when remaining internees, including Korematsu, were released as wartime restrictions lifted, marking the end of his imprisonment after approximately three years.[29]

Post-War Reassessment

Release and Employment Challenges

Korematsu was transferred to the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah following his 1943 conviction, where he remained until granted indefinite leave in May 1945 amid the winding down of the internment program after Japan's surrender.[1] Like other incarcerees, he received a nominal relocation allowance of $25 upon release, insufficient to offset the financial losses from seized property and disrupted livelihoods.[31] Initial resettlement restrictions barred return to the West Coast until December 1944, prompting temporary relocation to Detroit, Michigan, by October 1944 for work opportunities outside the camps.[1] Upon returning to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1940s, Korematsu settled in San Leandro and married Kathryn Pearson in 1949, starting a family with two children.[7] He deliberately concealed his Supreme Court conviction and full identity—using aliases like "Fred Toyosaki"—to evade scrutiny, as the notoriety of his case and ongoing anti-Japanese sentiment posed risks to social and economic reintegration.[31] This stigma, combined with broader postwar discrimination against Japanese Americans, limited prospects; employers often rejected applicants perceived as security risks, echoing prewar patterns where Korematsu himself lost his shipyard welder position after Pearl Harbor due to ancestry-based prejudice.[7] Employment remained precarious, with Korematsu's legal record hindering advancement despite his skilled background as a welder and mechanic.[7] He supported his family through manual labor jobs, but the conviction's shadow—upheld by the 1944 ruling—exacerbated barriers in a labor market wary of former incarcerees, many of whom faced wage gaps and exclusion from unions or federal contracts.[31] Japanese American communities reported systemic bias, including housing covenants and job ads specifying "no Japs," which compounded individual hardships like Korematsu's until economic recovery and civil rights shifts in later decades.[32]

Coram Nobis Petition and Overturn

In January 1983, following the discovery of suppressed wartime documents, Fred Korematsu filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to challenge his 1942 conviction for defying the Japanese American exclusion order.[2][21] The petition, supported by pro bono attorneys including historian Peter Irons and researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, argued that the government had committed fraud on the court by withholding key evidence during the original proceedings and Supreme Court appeal.[33][34] Specifically, documents revealed that Solicitor General Charles Fahy and Department of Justice officials knowingly suppressed reports from the Office of Naval Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other agencies indicating no evidence of sabotage or espionage by Japanese Americans on the West Coast, contradicting claims of military necessity.[2][4] The petition highlighted alterations to Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt's final report to remove statements admitting racial prejudice as the basis for exclusion, as well as internal memos from Assistant Attorney General Edward Ennis advising against reliance on DeWitt's findings due to their factual inaccuracies and lack of supporting intelligence.[35][34] Irons' research, conducted under the Freedom of Information Act, uncovered these materials, demonstrating that the government's case rested on misrepresented and incomplete information presented to the Supreme Court in 1944.[33] U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel presided over the case, which proceeded despite the rarity of coram nobis relief for decades-old convictions.[4] On November 10, 1983, Judge Patel granted the petition and vacated Korematsu's conviction, ruling that the writ of coram nobis was an appropriate remedy to address fundamental errors where no other avenues remained available.[2][4] The court found clear evidence of governmental misconduct, including the suppression of exculpatory intelligence reports and the prosecution's knowing use of fabricated justifications for mass exclusion, which undermined the original trial's integrity.[35] Patel emphasized that the military's exclusion orders lacked any substantiated basis in national security threats from Japanese Americans, as contemporaneous assessments showed loyalty and minimal risk.[2] The Department of Justice did not oppose the vacatur, acknowledging the historical errors in a statement of interest filed during proceedings.[4] This decision, formalized in Korematsu v. United States, 584 F. Supp. 1406 (N.D. Cal. 1984), marked the effective overturn of Korematsu's conviction without appeal, affirming that the internment policy's legal foundation was tainted by deliberate deception.[4]

Recognition and Reparations

Civil Liberties Act and Apology

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-383), signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on August 10, 1988, authorized $20,000 in restitution payments to each surviving Japanese American who had been interned during World War II, along with a formal apology from the United States government for the "fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights" of those affected.[36][28] The Act was informed by the 1983 report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, which determined that the internment stemmed from racial prejudice, war hysteria, and political misjudgment rather than military necessity, rejecting claims of espionage threats from Japanese Americans.[9] Over 82,000 individuals ultimately received payments through the Office for Redress Administration, established under the legislation to verify eligibility and distribute funds by 1998.[28] Fred Korematsu, having endured internment at Topaz War Relocation Center after his 1944 Supreme Court defeat, qualified as a recipient and received the $20,000 compensation as a surviving internee.[1] He contributed to the redress movement by lobbying members of Congress for the Act's passage, drawing on his personal experience and the 1983 federal court overturning of his conviction via coram nobis petition, which highlighted government suppression of evidence contradicting internment justifications.[1][37] This advocacy underscored the Act's broader acknowledgment of injustices like those in Korematsu v. United States, influencing legislative momentum toward reparations.[1] In his signing remarks, Reagan emphasized that the measure addressed not merely property losses but "honor," admitting past wrongs and recommitting to constitutional protections amid wartime pressures.[38] The apology was formalized in the Act's text, which expressed regret for actions driven by "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership," and was later personalized in letters accompanying checks, signed by President Bill Clinton starting in 1990 to affirm national resolve against repeating such errors.[38][39] These elements marked a congressional and executive repudiation of the internment policy, though critics noted the payments covered only a fraction of documented economic losses exceeding $400 million in 1940s values.[39]

Honors and Awards

In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, recognizing his defiance of internment orders and lifelong advocacy for civil liberties.[40][1] The ceremony occurred on January 15 at the White House, where Clinton praised Korematsu's stand as a rare act of courage amid wartime hysteria.[40] Earlier that year, on June 11, the California Senate presented Korematsu with its Senate Medal, one of the state's initial official recognitions of his contributions to justice following the vacating of his conviction.[40] On June 30, the Anti-Defamation League bestowed the Pearlstein Civil Rights Award, honoring his role in advancing protections against discrimination.[40] In 1999, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition gave him its Trailblazer Award at an event marking Rev. Jesse Jackson's birthday, acknowledging his commitment to social justice.[40] Korematsu also received honorary doctorates from institutions including the City University of New York Law School, University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law, California State University, East Bay, and University of San Francisco, saluting his legal and ethical legacy.[40] Posthumously, on October 27, 2021, the Roosevelt Institute awarded him its Freedom Medal as part of the Four Freedoms Awards, citing his challenge to Executive Order 9066 and broader civil rights activism.[41] Legislation to grant a Congressional Gold Medal, introduced in January 2025, remains pending in Congress.[42]

Death and Enduring Debates

Final Years

In the decades following the 1983 vacating of his conviction, Korematsu maintained an active role in civil rights advocacy, delivering speeches at universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Georgetown to educate audiences on the perils of unchecked executive power and mass incarceration based on ancestry.[7] His efforts emphasized lessons from the wartime internment, warning against repeating historical errors in policy-making.[12] After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Korematsu publicly protested the U.S. government's detention of individuals at Guantanamo Bay without trial, filing amicus briefs in key Supreme Court cases including Shafiq Rasul v. George W. Bush and Khaled A.F. Al Odah v. United States in 2003, as well as Donald Rumsfeld v. Jose Padilla in 2004.[7][43] These submissions highlighted parallels between post-9/11 policies toward Muslim detainees and the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, urging judicial scrutiny to prevent constitutional violations.[12] Korematsu, a resident of San Leandro, California, died of respiratory failure on March 30, 2005, at age 86 in his daughter Kathryn's home in Marin County.[44][7] A memorial service at First Presbyterian Church in Oakland attracted hundreds, reflecting his enduring impact on civil liberties discourse.[7]

Legacy as Civil Rights Figure

Following the 1983 vacating of his conviction through a writ of coram nobis, which revealed government suppression of evidence contradicting the military necessity for Japanese American internment, Fred Korematsu transitioned from a private citizen to an active civil rights advocate. He spoke at universities, testified before Congress, and emphasized the importance of upholding constitutional protections against discriminatory policies, drawing parallels to broader struggles for equality.[45][46] Korematsu's defiance of Executive Order 9066 positioned him as a symbol of resistance to wartime overreach and racial prejudice, inspiring recognition across educational and governmental institutions. On January 30—his birthday—several states observe Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, starting with California in 2010 as the first U.S. statewide observance named for an Asian American; by 2025, it extended to at least seven states including New Jersey and Michigan, promoting awareness of civil liberties threats.[47][48][49] In acknowledgment of his contributions to civil rights and patriotism, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu the Presidential Medal of Freedom on January 15, 1998, the nation's highest civilian honor, praising his stand as defining the American spirit in defending the Constitution. Legislative efforts persist to grant him a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal, with bipartisan bills introduced annually, such as S.338 in January 2025, honoring his loyalty amid internment injustices.[40][5][42] Korematsu's legacy underscores the correction of judicial errors through persistent legal and public advocacy, influencing discussions on government accountability and minority rights, though debates continue over the historical context of his case. His efforts, continued by family like daughter Kathryn Korematsu through the Korematsu Institute, sustain focus on preventing recurrence of mass civil liberties violations.[43][7]

Controversies Over Internment Necessity

The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was initially justified by military authorities as a necessary measure to prevent espionage, sabotage, and fifth-column activities amid fears following the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. General John L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Command, argued in his February 14, 1942, recommendation and subsequent reports that the ethnic Japanese population's proximity to vital West Coast military installations posed an unacceptable risk, citing unsubstantiated claims of radio signaling from shore to Japanese submarines and potential infiltration by Imperial Japanese agents.[50][16] These assertions underpinned Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, which authorized the exclusion and relocation of approximately 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens.[51] Proponents of necessity, including some historians reflecting on wartime uncertainty, contend that the policy was a prudent precaution given the rapid Japanese conquests in the Pacific, including the Niihau Incident on December 7, 1941, where a Japanese American resident aided a downed Imperial Japanese Navy pilot, and the challenges of rapidly vetting loyalty in a population where distinguishing immigrants from potentially coerced sympathizers was deemed infeasible by military intelligence at the time.[52][53] However, declassified documents and post-war investigations revealed significant flaws in the evidentiary basis for these claims, undermining assertions of military imperative. DeWitt's final report, submitted in June 1943, included fabricated or exaggerated elements, such as allegations of widespread signaling and sabotage that contradicted contemporaneous intelligence; the War Department suppressed portions admitting no such incidents had occurred prior to evacuation and altered the document to align with court arguments in Korematsu v. United States (1944).[54][55][34] FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Office of Naval Intelligence had reported as early as January 1942 that there was no evidence of espionage or sabotage by Japanese Americans on the West Coast, with fewer than 2,000 individuals arrested pre-evacuation based on specific suspicions rather than ethnicity.[53] Empirically, no Japanese American was ever convicted of sabotage or espionage throughout the war, despite heightened surveillance; the absence of realized threats, even as Japanese forces advanced in the Pacific, indicates the policy addressed hypothetical rather than causal risks.[56][57][58] The 1983 report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), titled Personal Justice Denied, concluded after reviewing intelligence records, military documents, and testimonies that the internment was not justified by military necessity but stemmed from racial prejudice, public hysteria, and political failures, with no substantiated threat warranting mass exclusion.[59][60] This assessment was echoed in the 1984 federal court vacating of Korematsu's conviction via coram nobis petition, which highlighted government misrepresentations in relying on DeWitt's report.[4] Counterarguments persist among some analysts, who invoke the "fog of war" and deference to executive authority in existential threats, noting Hawaii's selective internment (despite a larger Japanese population) succeeded due to martial law, but such views lack empirical support for mainland conditions, where individual targeting could have sufficed without racial blanket measures.[28][61] The debate underscores tensions between precautionary security and civil liberties, with post-hoc evidence favoring the latter absent demonstrable preventive efficacy.[62]

References

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  2. Facts and Case Summary — Korematsu v. U.S. - United States Courts
  3. Korematsu v. United States | Oyez
  4. Korematsu v. United States, 584 F. Supp. 1406 (N.D. Cal. 1984)
  5. Honoring Fred Korematsu | whitehouse.gov
  6. Fred Korematsu - Biography
  7. Fred's Story - Korematsu Institute
  8. Fred Korematsu - Warfare History Network
  9. Korematsu v. United States: 80 Years Later | New Orleans
  10. Fred Korematsu Obituary - CA - East Bay Times
  11. Considering History: Fred Korematsu's Battle for an Inclusive America
  12. Fred Korematsu | Densho Encyclopedia
  13. From the Archives: Fred Korematsu, 86; Fought WWII Internment of ...
  14. Fred Korematsu | World War II Database
  15. How Fred Korematsu defied Japanese incarceration in the U.S. ...
  16. Japanese American Incarceration | New Orleans
  17. Executive Order 9066 - FDR Presidential Library & Museum
  18. World War II Japanese American Incarceration - National Archives
  19. Japanese American Fred Korematsu is arrested for resisting ...
  20. https://www.supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/323/214/
  21. Korematsu v United States: A Chronology - Famous Trials
  22. Toyosaburo Korematsu v. United States, 140 F.2d 289 (9th Cir. 1943)
  23. Korematsu v. United States | 323 U.S. 214 (1944)
  24. [PDF] Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944). - Loc
  25. TOYOSABURO KOREMATSU v. UNITED STATES. | Supreme Court
  26. The Power of Fiery Dissents — Korematsu v. U.S.
  27. Tanforan (detention facility) - Densho Encyclopedia
  28. Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II
  29. Topaz | Densho Encyclopedia
  30. The Japanese American Wartime Incarceration - NIH
  31. The Enduring Legacy of Fred Korematsu - Densho
  32. After the War - The Internment Experience - CA.gov
  33. Peter Irons | Densho Encyclopedia
  34. Coram nobis cases | Densho Encyclopedia
  35. Korematsu v. US, 584 F.Supp. 1406, 16 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1231 ...
  36. H.R.442 - 100th Congress (1987-1988): Civil Liberties Act of 1987
  37. Rep. Maloy and Colleagues Introduce Legislation Honoring Civil ...
  38. Remarks on Signing the Bill Providing Restitution for the Wartime ...
  39. From Wrong To Right: A U.S. Apology For Japanese Internment - NPR
  40. Fred's Lifetime Awards - Korematsu Institute
  41. 2021 Four Freedoms Awards | Freedom Medal Ceremony
  42. S.338 - Fred Korematsu Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2025 ...
  43. The Legacy of Fred Korematsu
  44. Fred Korematsu, 86, Dies; Lost Key Suit on Internment
  45. The Korematsu Legacy | ACS - American Constitution Society
  46. The Legacy Of Civil Rights Leader Fred Korematsu - NPR
  47. What is Fred Korematsu Day?
  48. Governor Murphy Establishes January 30 as Fred Korematsu Day of ...
  49. https://legislature.mi.gov/Home/RenderDoc?objectName=mcl-435-304
  50. Gen. DeWitt's Final Report on the Japanese Evacuation
  51. Executive Order 9066: Resulting in Japanese-American ...
  52. CMV: WWII interning of Japanese Americans was justified, even if it ...
  53. [PDF] West Coast Tensions: The Push for Internment in World War II
  54. Masquerading Behind a Facade of National Security
  55. [PDF] Korematsu Overruled? Far From It: The Supreme Court Reloads the ...
  56. Behind the Wire | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History
  57. “We Are Americans, Again?” | New Orleans
  58. “A Grave Injustice:” The Internment of Japanese-Americans, 1942-45
  59. Redress and Reparations for Japanese American Incarceration
  60. Japanese American Internment | National Archives
  61. https://reason.com/2025/10/23/what-the-japanese-internment-case-teaches-about-judicial-deference-to-presidential-power/
  62. Is there evidence that Japanese internment camps helped the US ...
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