Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution January 30
At a time when we see civil rights being rolled back, we need to stand up for what is right. The Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution is about advocacy, both big gestures and small ones, and using your voice to stand up for what you know is right. Fred T. Korematsu received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1998. Other civil rights heroes who stood up in the face of injustice during the Japanese American Incarceration, Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui, were awarded Medals posthumously by President Barack Obama in 2012 and 2015 respectively. They were honored for standing up for what is right in the face of gross injustice in response to Executive Order 9066. While their cases were not successful at the U.S. Supreme Court, they were overturned by a writ of coram nobis in 1983. During World War II, there were four cases that challenged the legality of the Japanese American Incarceration. We were happy that Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who was responsible for closing the incarceration camps, received the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2025.
Their legacy was to stand up against injustice and speak up, not just for the rights of 125,000 people who were incarcerated, but for all Americans. We can all hope for a future where we never allow the same fear and ignorance to grab hold of our decision-makers to repeat the same terrible, xenophobic mistake without an uproar in opposition.
And advocacy always starts with one voice. It does not take a Supreme Court case of a grave injustice leaving a black eye on Liberty to create an advocate. Voting is advocacy. Stopping a bully in their tracks is advocacy. Speaking up when you see something wrong is advocacy. On this Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, we hope we all can reflect on our shared humanity and how we can make the country and the planet better. This is about all of us!