audio by title this day in history june 21 in 1943

• produced by Hana Georg
• in

The Hirabayashi and Yasui Supreme Court cases were decided, upholding that the Japanese-American internment order from 1942 was constitutional. Both Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui had been arrested for resisting the mandatory curfew and mass relocation orders imposed on Japanese Americans following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The Supreme Court ruled that because the US was at war with Japan, these measures were indeed a 'military necessity.' The following year, in a similar court case, Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy described this system of Japanese-American imprisonment as quote, "another example of the unconstitutional resort to racism." Beautifully said.