Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu (1919-2005)
b. Oakland, California
Korematsu v. United States (1944)
Do You Know? Fred Korematsu resisted the incarceration order of Japanese Americans in World War II by having minor plastic surgery and changing his name to Clyde Sarah.
What: Korematsu claimed the internment of Japanese Americans violated his constitutional rights as a US citizen.
Decision: The court deemed the interment of Japanese Americans as a "military necessity not based on race."
Today: The case was overturned in 1983 with the judge saying the "policies of the American government [at the time] were infected with racism."
(Portrait by Cecillia Darren, SFSU 2019)