Fred Korematsu: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Civil rights icon Fred Korematsu , who was among Japanese-Americans held in internment camps during World War II, is being celebrated with a Google Doodle on what would have been his 98th birthday.

Korematsu battled against the internment order, standing up for thousands of fellow Japanese-Americans.

“Fred Korematsu can be remembered fighting for civil rights and against prejudice throughout his life,” Google says. “The doodle by artist Sophie Diao–herself a child of Asian immigrants–features a patriotic portrait of Korematsu wearing his Presidential Medal of Freedom, a scene of the internment camps to his back, surrounded by cherry blossoms, flowers that have come to be symbols of peace and friendship between the US and Japan.”

Not long before his death in 2005, Korematsu, spoke out about how some have used Japanese internment as a justification for profiling against Muslims in the fight against terrorism:

Fears and prejudices directed against minority communities are too easy to evoke and exaggerate, often to serve the political agendas of those who promote those fears. I know what it is like to be at the other end of such scapegoating and how difficult it is to clear one’s name after unjustified suspicions are endorsed as fact by the government.

If someone is a spy or terrorist they should be prosecuted for their actions. But no one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy.

“If you have the feeling that something is wrong, don’t be afraid to speak up,” he famously said.

Here’s what you need to know about Korematsu: