Asian American Civil Rights

  

 Fred Korematsu, Minoru Yasui, and Gordon Hirabayashi at a press conference about the Asian American Civil Rights Movement.Bettman Archive / Getty Images

During the Asian American civil rights movement of the 1960s and '70s, activists fought for the development of ethnic studies programs in universities, an end to the Vietnam War, and reparations for Japanese Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. The movement had come to a close by the late 1980s.

https://www.thoughtco.com/asian-american-civil-rights-movement-history-2834596

Nov. 21, 1927: Lum v. Rice Supreme Court Ruling

On Nov. 21, 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of nine-year old Chinese-American Martha Lum (seated 3rd from left in front row), daughter of Gong Lum, who was removed from the Rosedale Consolidated School in Bolivar County, Mississippi, solely because she was of Chinese descent.

Before she was removed, Lum’s 3rd-4th-grade class at Rosedale School in Bolivar County, MS, in 1924. Source: Delta State University Archives & Museum

In Lum v Rice, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state’s rights and Plessy v. Ferguson applied to Asian American students, or as the court said, students of the “yellow race.”

Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South

Legacy

Lum continued to be cited in briefs supporting racial segregation, and court decisions upholding it,^[20] until it was effectively overruled 27 years later by the Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in public schools. An important part of the decision still stands—the power of the state to make racial distinctions in its school system, and to determine the race of its students. It has not been overturned because it was not an issue in Brown.^[21][22]

It is remembered today for increasing the scope of permissible segregation. Historian and educator James Loewen called Lum "the most racist Supreme Court decision in the twentieth century".^[3] Legal scholar Jamal Greene has called it an "ugly and unfortunate" decision. "The Court's ruling had established a precedent more powerful than the Lum family could have imagined", observed Adrienne Berard, in Water Tossing Boulders, a history of the case. "By fighting, they had only made the enemy stronger."^{[3]: Ch. 9}

Confucius Plaza, 1974. Photo by Corky Lee.

https://www.aafe.org/who-we-are/our-history

What did the Asian American movement do?

The movement created community service programs, art, poetry, music, and other creative works; offered a new sense of self-determination; and raised the political and racial consciousness of Asian Americans.

Patsy Mink

Congresswoman Patsy Mink (December 6, 1927 – September 28, 2002) was the first Asian American woman elected to Congress, and ran 18 political campaigns since 1956. Through it all, Mink has consistently taken moral stands on behalf of Asian Americans, women, and children—even at potential risk to her political career.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/asian-americans-and-moments-in-peoples-history/

High school students in Oakland at Black Panther Party funeral rally for Bobby Hutton, dated from 1969. Photo credit to Asian American Movement 1968.

ESSAYS | ACCIDENTAL CHINESE HIPSTERS, ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT, BILL CHENG, CIVIL RIGHTS, HISTORY

FROM A NEWSPAPER PRINTED IN 1969 BY THE ASIAN AMERICAN POLITICAL ALLIANCE (AAPA), SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY’S THIRD WORLD LIBERATION FRONT (TWLF) CHAPTER HOLDS A PICKET LINE. PHOTO CREDIT TO ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT 1968.ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT 1968

A newsprint poster from UC Berkeley’s chapter of the Third World Liberation Front dated from March 1969, with Richard Aoki on the far left. Photo credit to Asian American Movement 1968.ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT 1968

From the cover of “STAND UP: An Archive Collection of the Bay Area Asian American Movement 1968-1974,” Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) protest outside of UC Berkeley’s Greek Theater at a 1968 anti-war rally. Photo credit to Asian American Movement 1968.ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT 1968