The Alameda Multicultural Community Center in association with the Fred T. Korematsu Institute invites the public to a film screening of Of Civil Wrongs & Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story, followed by a discussion. This film event is part of the Multicultural Center's Diversity Film Series.
In 2010 the state of California declared Fred Korematsu's birthday, January 30th, as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, and designated it a State Day of Special Significance for California Public Schools. This was the first time in the United States that a day had been named after a person of Asian American heritage.
Oakland resident Fred Korematsu was working in the San Francisco shipyards in 1942 when Executive Order 9066 ordered the internment of Japanese-Americans. Mr. Korematsu was arrested, interned and convicted of a felony in 1942 for failing to report. The conviction was vacated in 1983 by the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. President Clinton awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., to Mr. Korematsu in 1998.
One of the last things Mr. Korematsu said before his death in 2005 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.” He 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.”
