1943: US Supreme Court upholds America's World War II Japanese Internment Camps in the case of Hirabayashi vs. The United States. Supreme Court Justice and former Governor of Michigan, Frank Murphy, expressed his strong dissent, stating, “I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting, but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must accordingly be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment and as entitled to all rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution.”

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21 Jun 2024