Associated Press (March 31, 2005)

Fred Korematsu, who became a symbol of civil rights for challenging the World War II internment orders that sent 120,000 Japanese Americans to government camps, has died. He was 86.

Korematsu died Wednesday of respiratory illness at his daughter's home in Larkspur, said his attorney Dale Minami.

"He had a very strong will," Minami said. "He was like our Rosa Parks. He took an unpopular stand at a critical point in our history."

After finally getting his conviction overturned in the early 1980s for opposing internment orders during the war, Korematsu helped win a national apology and reparations for internment camp survivors and their families in 1988.

He was honored by President Clinton in 1998 with the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

"In the long history of our country's constant search for justice, some names of ordinary citizens stand for millions of souls -- Plessy, Brown, Parks," Clinton said at the time. "To that distinguished list today we add the name of Fred Korematsu."

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