THE HEART MOUNTAIN DRAFT RESISTERS

TIMELINE

1940 The Selective Service Act of 1940 is passed, establishing America’s first peacetime draft. In the draft’s first year, 3,500 Nisei — Japanese-Americans born in the United States of immigrant parents — are drafted.
DECEMBER 7, 1941 Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. The United States is drawn into World War II. The FBI arrests 1,300 Issei — Japanese immigrants who were deemed potentially dangerous enemy aliens.
JANUARY 5, 1942 Nisei are reclassified as aliens ineligible for the draft.
FEBRUARY 19, 1942 President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forced exclusion of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.
MARCH TO AUGUST, 1942 All persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast of the United States are forced to leave their homes and businesses and move to temporary detention centers — and eventually to internment camps. Some 120,000 Japanese-Americans are expelled from the West Coast; they lose approximately $6-10 billion in property and income.
MARCH 30, 1942 Nisei are no longer inducted for military service.
MID-SUMMER THROUGH FALL, 1942 The Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Park County, Wyoming, is built and opens. Heart Mountain is one of 10 American-style concentration camps used to intern persons of Japanese descent.
JANUARY 28, 1943 Nisei are permitted to volunteer for military service.
FEBRUARY 1, 1943 Nisei become draft-eligible, to create a segregated Army unit.
NOVEMBER 1943 Kiyoshi Okamoto establishes the “Fair Play Committee” (the “FPC”) at Heart Mountain. The FPC calls for a test case to determine the legality of their forced incarceration.
JANUARY 20, 1944 The draft is reinstituted for all Nisei, including those interned at camps.
FEBRUARY 23, 1944 James Omura publishes an editorial in support of draft resistance, entitled “Let Us Not Be Rash,” in the Rocky Shimpo Newspaper of Denver, Colorado.
MAY 10, 1944 In United States v. Fujii, 63 resisters from Heart Mountain are indicted by the grand jury in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for draft evasion.
In United States v. Okamoto, 7 leaders of the FPC and journalist James Omura are indicted by the grand jury in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for conspiracy to counsel draft evasion.
JUNE 6, 1944 D-Day — The Allied Forces land at Normandy.
JUNE 12, 1944 The Fujii trial commences before Judge T. Blake Kennedy in the United States District Court in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
JUNE 26, 1944 The 63 Fujii defendants are convicted and sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment.
AUGUST 5, 1944 Pretrial arguments are heard in Okamoto in the United States District Court in Cheyenne, Wyoming, before Judge Eugene Rice, visiting from Oklahoma.
OCTOBER 23, 1944 The Okamoto trial commences.
NOVEMBER 1, 1944 The 7 FPC leaders are convicted James Omura, the reporter, is acquitted.
NOVEMBER 2, 1944 The FPC leaders are sentenced to 2 to 4 years’ imprisonment, and are removed to a federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas.
DECEMBER 17, 1944 The internment of Japanese-Americans ends.
DECEMBER 18, 1944 The Supreme Court issues Korematsu and upholds Executive Order 9066 and the army’s eviction of Japanese-Americans.
MARCH 12, 1945 The Tenth Circuit affirms the Fujii judgment.
AUGUST 11, 1945 V-J Day — Japan surrenders.
SEPTEMBER 2, 1945 World War II formally ends.
NOVEMBER 1945 Heart Mountain formally closes.
DECEMBER 26, 1945 The Tenth Circuit reverses the convictions of the 7 FPC leaders in Okamoto, holding that the jury should have been allowed to consider their defense of civil disobedience.
JULY 14, 1946 Nearly all the resisters imprisoned at the McNeil Island, Washington, federal penitentiary are released with time off for good behavior.
DECEMBER 24, 1947 President Harry S. Truman pardons all wartime draft resisters, including the Nisei resisters from Heart Mountain and other camps.
1952 Congress enacts the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, which includes allowances for Issei naturalization.
AUGUST 10, 1988 President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act, providing a formal apology from the government and redress of $20,000 to each survivor incarcerated under Executive Order 9066.

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