Harvey Eaton letter to Edward Connelly explaining why Gordon Hirabayashi is being prosecuted in Eastern Washington, August 29, 1944

Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi (1918-2012) was an American sociologist and conscientious objector to the Japanese American internment during WWII. Born in the Sand Point area of Seattle, he grew up on the farmland surrounding Kent. In Japan, both of Hirabayashi's parents had become members of Mukyokai, or the "non-church" movement. Teaching Christian principles free from denominational issues, Mukyokai stressed an uncompromising stand against social injustice. When he was a student at the University of Washington, Hirabayashi became a Quaker and involved in social services. Hirabayashi refused to comply with the curfew imposed on Japanese Americans in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and later refused to report for relocation to the internment camps on the grounds that the directives were based solely on race and therefore were unconstitutional. After the last Japanese were forcibly removed from Seattle, Hirabayashi turned himself in to the FBI and was tried and convicted in...