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Google is celebrating the life of a pioneering civil rights activist who fought against the exclusion of people based on their race.
Fred Korematsu was 22 years old when more than 115,000 Japanese-American people sent into incarceration because of a controversial Executive Order – number 9066 – that was signed in 1942 by Franklin D Roosevelt. It was an Executive Order that also introduced the travel ban on Muslim people from seven countries, and went into effect over the weekend .
But rather than voluntarily be moved to an internment camp, Mr Korematsu went into hiding. That led to him being arrested in 1942 and convicted, after which he and his family were sent to the Central Utah War Relocation Center until the war was over.
Rudy Giuliani explains how he helped Trump put together 'Muslim ban' legally That was despite the best efforts of organisations like the American Civil Liberties Union, which fought to take the case to the Supreme Court and then lost. The ACLU has been active in fighting against the new Executive Order, signed by Mr Trump, which meant that many people from various countries were held indefinitely in US airports.
The illegality and the wrongness of the executive order were eventually recognised by the US, which ended it in 1976. Mr Korematsu had his conviction overturned in 1983.
Five years later, Ronald Reagan introduced the The Civil Liberties Act of 1988, and as he did so he cited "racial prejudice, wartime hysteria and a lack of political leadership" for the internments.
A post on the Fred Korematsu Institute makes clear the parallels between what happened during the war and what is happening today.
"Some people think that the incarceration of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II happened a long long time ago, and since the verdict in the Korematsu case was vacated, everything is okay now, and this could never happen again," the post reads.
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration banShow all 20 1 /20Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-1 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
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Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-2 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-3 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-4 SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JANUARY 28: Demonstrators hold signs during a rally against a ban on Muslim immigration at San Francisco International Airport on January 28, 2017 in San Francisco, California. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that suspends entry of all refugees for 120 days, indefinitely suspends the entries of all Syrian refugees, as well as barring entries from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering for 90 days.
Stephen Lam/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-5 A crowd of protesters gathers outside of the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse as a judge hears a challenge against President Donald Trump's executive ban on immigration from several Muslim countries, on January 28, 2017 in Brooklyn. The judge issued an emergency stay on part of Trump's executive order, ruling that sending refugees stopped at U.S. airports back to their countries would be harmful.
Yana Paskova/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-6 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the new immigration ban issued by President Donald Trump at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-7 NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Protestors rally during a demonstration against the new immigration ban issued by President Donald Trump at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-8 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the new immigration ban issued by President Donald Trump at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-9
Getty Images
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-10
Getty Images
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-11 NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-12 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-13 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-14 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-15 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-16 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-17 NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-18 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-19 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Stephanie Keith/Getty
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-20 Passengers wait in line to check in at the American Airlines terminal at JFK International Airport August 10, 2006 in the Queens borough of New York City. British authorities arrested 21 people and halted a anallegedly terrorist plot to use liquid explosives concealed in carry-on luggage to blow up airliners traveling between Britain and the U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said that the plot appeared to be directed at U.S. carriers flying out of Heathrow. such as United Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines.
Stephen Chernin/Getty
"However, after the events of 9/11, there has been an escalation of hate crimes and racial profiling—by 1,600 percent—all around the country targeting Muslim and Arab Americans, and those perceived to be Muslim and Arab Americans (like Sikh Americans, for whom 2 out of 3 children who wear patak or turbans are bullied in schools)."
The post, written by activist Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, goes on to describe the kind of hate crimes and discrimination that have happened to those people. Both Google and the post draw attention to a famous quotation from Mr Karamatsu: “If you have the feeling that something is wrong, don’t be afraid to speak up.”
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