1Designating January 30, 2014, as "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil
2Liberties" in Pennsylvania.

3WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu was born in Oakland, California, on
4January 30, 1919, as the third of four sons to Japanese
5immigrant parents; and

6WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu worked in his family's flower nursery
7in Oakland, California, where he encountered racism as a young
8man; and

9WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu registered for military duty under
10the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, but was not
11selected because of stomach ulcers and instead worked as a
12welder in the Oakland shipyards in order to contribute his
13services to his country's defense; and

14WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu lost his job in the shipyards
15following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese
16Navy on December 7, 1941; and

17WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu became one of the thousands of

1Japanese-American citizens living on the west coast during World
2War II who were interned as a result of President Franklin D.
3Roosevelt's issuing Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942,
4which authorized the Secretary of War and his military
5commanders to remove all persons of Japanese ancestry, including
6American citizens, from the west coast; and

7WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu refused to heed the orders issued by
8Western Defense Commander General John L. DeWitt in sending
9Japanese-Americans citizens to concentration camps and continued
10to live and work in Oakland until his arrest on May 30, 1942,
11and incarceration at a jail in San Francisco; and

12WHEREAS, The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern
13California asked Mr. Korematsu if he would be willing to use his
14case to test the constitutional legality of the internment of
15Japanese Americans; and

16WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu agreed and was assigned Wayne M.
17Collins as his defense attorney; and

18WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu appealed his case all the way to the
19United States Supreme Court, where the high court ruled against
20him in a 6-3 decision on December 18, 1944, that declared the
21incarceration was justified by "military necessity" and claimed
22that Americans of Japanese ancestry were radio-signaling enemy
23ships from shore and were prone to dishonesty; and

24WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu's conviction was formally vacated on
25November 10, 1983, by United States District Judge Marilyn Hall
26Patel of the United States District Court of Northern California
27in San Francisco on the grounds of government misconduct and
28material evidence that had been suppressed, altered and
29destroyed at the time of the 1944 United States Supreme Court
30decision, an action considered to be a pivotal movement in civil

1rights history; and

2WHEREAS, This action cleared Mr. Korematsu's name, but did
3not overturn the 1944 United States Supreme Court decision; and

4WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu remained an activist throughout his
5life, and in 1998 he received the nation's highest civilian
6honor in the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
7from President William J. Clinton; and

8WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu filed two amicus curiae briefs with
9the Supreme Court after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United
10States when he felt prisoners were detained at Guantanamo Bay
11for too long, warning the government not to repeat the mistakes
12of the Japanese internment; and

13WHEREAS, Fred Korematsu also spoke out about racial profiling
14in 2004 by stating, "No one should ever be locked away simply
15because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a
16spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the
17internment of Japanese-Americans, then these are very dangerous
18times for our democracy"; therefore be it

19RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives recognize and
20honor the contributions Fred Korematsu made to raising the
21awareness about the challenges faced by Americans of Japanese
22ancestry during World War II, Americans of Middle-Eastern
23descent post-9/11 and any other American suffering the
24discriminatory effects of profiling due to age, ethnicity, race,
25religion and other characteristics separating them from
26mainstream America.