On January 30

On this day in ...
... 2011 (today), Californians will mark the 1st annual Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. Korematsu was born in Oakland on this day in 1919. Though an American citizen, he, like hundreds of thousands of other persons of Japanese heritage, was interned by the United States during World War II. As we've posted, his conviction for refusal of U.S. orders was sustained by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1944. It was set aside by write of coram nobis in 1984, and 4 years later Korematsu received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (left). (photo credit) The day in honor of Korematsu, who died in 2005, was established last fall following unanimous votes in both house of California's legislature.

(Prior January 30 posts are here, here, and here.)

On September 1

On this day in ...
... 1942, what The New York Times called "the first specific ruling on the constitutionality of actions" taken by the U.S. government in order to effect the "evacuation of Japanese on the Pacific Coast," a federal trial judge sustained the Army's efforts to hold "all American-born Japanese as well as Japanese nationals" in what was called "protective custody." Judge Martin I. Welsh issued the oral ruling in his court in Sacramento, in a challenge brought by a man whom the Times identified as "Fred T. Morematsu." The actual surname of the young U.S.-born man at left was, of course, Korematsu (photo credit) -- and his case would go on to set an oft-criticized 1944 Supreme Court precedent.


(Prior September 1 posts are here, here, and here.)

On December 18, ...

... 1892 (115 years ago today), at the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, a ballet written by Igor Tchaikovsky and choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, had its world premiere (above). Initial reviews panned the spectacle, yet "The Nutcracker" went on to "become the most attended holiday ballet ever produced."
... 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court issued 2 decisions respecting the country's internment of more than 100,000 U.S. citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry during World War II. In Ex parte Endo, the Court unanimously granted the habeas petition of Mitsuye Endo (right), who had been a typist for the Department of Motor Vehicles in Sacramento and was interned notwithstanding her undisputed loyalty to the United States. In Korematsu v. United States, the Court affirmed, by a vote of 7 to 2, the conviction of Fred Korematsu (above left), a 22-year-old Bay Area welder, for having violated the exclusion order that preceded detention. "[P]ressing public necessity" justified the deprivation of liberty, Justice Hugo Black wrote for the Court. The conviction would be voided in 1984 via the order by which U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel (left) granted Korematsu's petition for a writ of coram nobis.