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Category: Civil Rights

Artifacts, collections, and stories from the civil rights movement.

American Infamy

by Alex Filippides

The Legacy of Japanese American Incarceration Following the Attacks on Pearl Harbor

By Alexander Filippides 

Imagine, for a moment, the year is 1941, you’re an American citizen, as are your parents, but your grandparents, who have passed away, were born in the Japanese Empire more than half a century ago. Following the December 7th attacks on Pearl Harbor your life is flipped on its head. Neighbors who greeted you with kindness now refuse to look at you, the news and radio refer to you using racial slurs, and soon you’ll be forcibly imprisoned by the American government because of your race.  

Over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, experienced this treatment after President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19th, 1942. The infamous order authorized the forced removal of those who, in the eyes of the Secretary of War and later the War Relocation Authority, were a threat to national security. While this did include a limited number of Italians and Germans, the order was overwhelming used to prosecute those of Japanese ethnicity. Racism against the Japanese, and Asians at large, was nothing new for the United States; a myriad of ordinances had already been put in place to explicitly discriminate against Chinese, Japanese, and other East Asians; but this was something different. This wasn’t the government restricting immigration or enacting unjust employment, housing and education laws— instead the Federal government was imprisoning American citizens due to their ethnicity. 

The reactions of those unjustly imprisoned varied widely. Some would never fully recover from the mental anguish; evidence suggests that those incarcerated would suffer disproportionately from a variety of mental health issues, including higher suicide and drug usage rates. Children and youth, who were early in their development, were likely also deeply impacted by the imprisonment. The average age of Nisei, or first generation of Japanese Americans born in the US, at the time of Executive Order 9066 was 18. Despite the extraordinarily oppressive, disruptive, and traumatic nature of the incarceration, some were able to overcome impossible odds and build incredible lives both during and after the Second World War. 

Black and white photograph of an Asian American woman posing in front of small drawings and paintings.
Miné Okubo, Nisei greeting friends at a tea in her honor at the opening of an exhibit of her drawings and paintings of center life at the American Common, Mar. 6, 1945, New York, New York. Courtesy of the Online Archive of California, accessed via Densho.org.

Miné Okubo

One of the most celebrated figures in the Japanese American community to arise out of this period was Miné Okubo, an artist, activist, and author who would establish herself during incarceration as one of the greatest activist-artists of her era. Okubo continued to live in New York after incarceration and had a unique connection to Westport, designing annual Christmas cards for the Robert Duffus, a celebrated writer and editor who would call Westport home for many years. 

Originally born in Riverside, California, in 1912, Okubo was seemingly destined for a career in illustration well-before Order 9066 was signed by FDR. In fact, Okubo was on an art fellowship in Europe when the Germans crossed the Polish border. At first, the artist fled to neutral Switzerland to await permission to gather her belongings in Paris, but upon being informed that her mother was seriously ill she took what she had on hand and boarded one of the last ships leaving Bordeaux, France.1

Once Japan attacked the United States in 1941, Okubo became acutely aware of the rising anti-Japanese racism that gripped newspapers, radio, and in the American public more broadly. Concerning fears of so-called “evacuation” to prison camps, Okubo would write: 

Drawing of Asian American woman leaning over an open newspaper with anti-Asian slogans written around the top edge.
Okubo with open newspaper, surrounded by anti-Japanese slogans, Berkeley, California, 1941. Courtesy of the Japanese American National Museum.

We had not believed at first that evacuation would affect the Nisei, American citizens of Japanese ancestry, but thought perhaps the Issei, Japanese-born mothers and fathers who were denied naturalization by American law, would be interned in case of war between Japan and the United States. It was a real blow when everyone, regardless of citizenship, was ordered to evacuate. 

While detained at these camps, those of Japanese descent were not allowed to document their experiences using cameras or audio recordings. Undeterred, Okubo would produce around 200 line-drawings that depicted daily life during incarceration between 1942 and 1944. Okubo was granted permission to depart for New York in 1944 where she would go to work as an illustrator for Fortune magazine. The incarceration-era art created by Miné Okubo would be first published in 1946, when anti-Japanese sentiment remained high even after the recent nuclear bombings, and subsequent surrender, of Japan in August 1945. Citizen 13660, the book that would combine Okubo’s sketches with her musings, memories, and observations, remains perhaps the best firsthand account of life in an American concentration camp. 

Daniel Rhodes assists Minnie Negoro with the pottery wheel at Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Courtesy of Department of the Interior, War Relocation Authority, accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

Minnie Negoro

Okubo, however, wasn’t the only notable artist who would settle in the Northeast after bearing witness to Japanese and Japanese American incarceration. Minnie Negoro was another Japanese American artist who would find her early career defined by imprisonment. A skilled ceramic artist who specialized in crafting pots, Negoro’s art later be held in many major institutions, such as the Smithsonian, was a vital member of the artistic community in Connecticut. In the Spring of 1942, she founded the ceramics department at the University of Connecticut.  While interred, Negoro used her craft as an escape from camp conditions, created beauty and utility during a dark and desolate chapter of American history. Negoro remembered incarceration: 

It was a frightening place, with guard towers and MPs who were told to shoot anyone going outside or over the gate. It was a concentration camp. I just wanted to get the heck out of there and to get as far away from the West Coast as possible. 

Negoro didn’t only create pottery for her own sake, but helped teach classes to allow a reprieve for her fellow prisoners. In 1944, she was finally able to leave Heart Mountain, Wyoming, where she had been held, to attend Alfred University as a graduate student on the recommendation of her mentor Daniel Rhodes, a notable ceramic potter himself. Not only would Minne Negoro finish her education with a Master of Arts, but she would also go on to found her own ceramics program at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. 

Gene Takahashi

No story of Japanese incarceration touches Westport more closely than that of Gene Takahashi. Raised in El Centro, California, Takahashi would call Westport home for many, many, years later in life. Takahashi was only fourteen at the time Order 9066 was issued. Despite his young age, Gene later recalled his emotions while entering Poston Relocation Center with clarity saying “It was quite a shock to us, getting off the two-and-a-half-ton truck to see there were actually guards, barbed wire, and we were actually in a prison.” 

The young Gene Takahashi was, at last, permitted to leave camp with his family in 1944. Settling down in Cleveland, Ohio, the now-sixteen-year-old Takahashi could not escape the feeling of wanting to prove himself a “loyal American.” To this end, he enlisted in the American army, inspired by the all-Japanese American regiment the 442nd, at the ripe age of seventeen, requiring his parents’ permission to enlist.

Joining at the very tail-end of World War II, Takahashi would be stationed in Korea as part of the American force occupying Japan and former Japanese colonial territories. Despite the utility of speaking Japanese in Korea, a country which had suppressed the Korean language since Japanese entry in 1910, he felt unfairly targeted by his commanding officer due to his youth and Japanese ethnicity. However, Takahashi remembers this period fondly, stating that the intense scrutiny he was under contributed positively to his development at such a young age. 

Black and white photograph of a young Asian American man in military uniform.
Gene J. Takahashi upon completion of Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia [10/31/1946]. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

After completing his contract, Takahashi returned home but agreed to stay in the army reserve. Upon returning to Cleveland, he married his fiancé Violette and began a family before receiving an unexpected letter from President Truman, asking him to return to Korea to fight in the escalating Korean War. Now intimately familiar with Korea, Takahashi was a vital part of the slow desegregation of the American Armed Forces, being placed as the lieutenant of an all-black troop.

As the Chinese joined the conflict, Takahashi found himself narrowly evading capture, and likely execution, after his unit was overrun. The lieutenant would rally his troops again to slow the Chinese onslaught approaching Seoul, an action which would win Lt. Takahashi the Combat Infantry Badge and the Purple Heart. Soon after this, however, he would be shot by a Chinese machine gun and forced to return home. Takahashi would go on to have a large family and became a key figure in IBM’s litigation team, before finally settling in Westport as he approached the twilight of his career. 

Could This Happen Again?

Takahashi’s legacy, like those of Negoro and Okubo, is profoundly influenced by the trials and tribulations presented by the unjust incarceration of so many Japanese and Japanese Americans. It is impossible to read the stories of these figures without wondering how different things may have been if, instead of spending multiple foundational years of life in a concertation camp, they had been permitted the same opportunities and rights of their non-Japanese counterparts. If these people, who undoubtably led exceptional lives, had been born White, would their names be more widely remembered? Its undeniable racism against Asians and Japanese Americans didn’t end with the end of incarceration, nor would it end with the Japanese surrender and occupation. Okubo would reflect in the intro of the 1983 edition of Citizen 13660: 

I am often asked why I am not bitter and could this happen again? I am a realist with a creative mind, interested in people, so my thoughts are constructive. I am not bitter. I hope things can be learned from this tragic episode, for I believe it could happen again. 

Could this happen again? The recent election win of President-elect Donald Trump has put question marks over the heads of undocumented immigrants nationwide. Stephen Miller, a Trump advisor, has proposed building “mass deportation camps” as part of a goal to, as a separate campaign spokesperson stated, “marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation in American history.” Unfortunately, this is no new practice in modern American politics. Since the Obama administration, there has been a massive increase in family detention camps in a similar effort to curb illegal immigration. However, the blatantly hostile rhetoric towards immigrants by the incoming administration means that the nation may be looking at a situation that could quickly spiral out of control. 

What is the legacy of Japanese and Japanese American incarceration? Is it the legacy the 442nd, the legendary Japanese American regiment that fought in Europe, and, later, Gene Takahashi? Is it the artists, like Okubo and  Negoro, who’s art would capture this horrifying chapter of American history with powerful memories of oppression and elegant moments of escape? Perhaps, even, it is the tens of thousands whose stories remain untold; those who suffered not just in the camps but for a lifetime afterwards in silence.  

The most sobering legacy must be the continual acceptance of anti-Asian racism in our country. One must look no further than the rise in anti-Asian hate crime that followed the outbreak of the COVID pandemic to see how, even with reparations and time, lessons are not learned if they are not remembered. 

Offline materials: 

  1. Okubo, Miné. Citizen 13660 (Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 1946).  

Black History Month in Connecticut: Lessons About Race

by Nicole Carpenter

The fight for equality of education—and for respect in the classroom for children and teachers of color—in Connecticut towns can be traced back nearly two hundred years. Entrenched social biases had long created de-facto segregation within the state’s education system. In 1831, the citizens of New Haven successfully fought the opening a mechanical college for Black men and in 1833 Prudence Crandall, a Quaker teacher was arrested in Canterbury, Connecticut for opening a school for young Black Girls. In 1868, in response to a state Educational Law requiring open enrollment in public schools despite students’ race or color, the Hartford School system voted for “separate but equal” schools for non-White children. 

Oil portrait of Prudence Crandall seated in front of a curtain.
Prudence Crandall, the state hero, attempted to open a school to educate African American girls and was arrested.
Black and white photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt
In 1958, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, commented that it was a basic human right for children to attend school “with equal dignity without discrimination.”
19th century school class photograph where one girl--Anna Simms--an African American student is standing alone.
In this late 19th or early 20th century photo, Anna Simms, is the only Black student at Westport’s Shercrowe School.

By the twentieth century, negative attitudes toward Black students in largely White public schools—particularly in affluent neighborhoods—remained entrenched. While the active years of the Civil Rights Movement brought the legal fight against school segregation to the South, Northern communities were often overlooked for their de facto segregation of children of color from public schools.  

Project Concern

In July of 1970 a group called “Westporters for Equality in Schooling” sent a letter to Joan Schine, Westport Board of Education chair. The group asked for Project Concern, a national school integration plan which brought elementary age children of color from under-resourced areas of Bridgeport into Westport schools, to be placed on the board’s agenda. A bitter fight ensued. 

The program was overseen by Cliff Barton, a ground-breaking Black educator who was a former teacher and administrator with passion for looking after students with special needs—including those disenfranchised by racial inequality. Barton had joined the town school system in 1958—the same year former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt made public remarks about the need for human rights and human dignity to begin in “small spaces” including schools.  ”Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination,” she wrote.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination.


Eleanor Roosevelt, American political leader and activist

By December, the discussion to participate in Project Concern had moved to a vote. On the 7th the Board of Education passed the resolution to bus 25 African American students from grades 1 through 3 to Westport, with the final vote to pass being cast by chair Joan Schine herself.

The vote created community upheaval, and many protested the move, sparking the creation of the “Recall Committee”: a parent group formed to remove Mrs. Schine. On New Year’s Eve an article in the Bridgeport Post reported a petition with nearly 4,000 signatures was delivered to Town hall to request such a recall after Schine refused to hold a referendum. Local attitudes toward Project Concern can be viewed in the documentary film below. 

The City of Hartford had already opted into the program in 1966, with its own share of push back and criticism. Opponents of the vote feared that the program would lead to a “dangerous opening wedge in an undeclared campaign to bring more and more ghetto children into Westport with consequent dilution of the quality of education.”

Today in Westport, we are engaged in a situation in which the forces and agents with the most power reign temporarily in an eternal “king of the hill” struggle.


Joan Schine, Westport Board of Education Chair, 1971

Subsequently, the Westport Board of Selectman called for a special election to remove Ms. Schine. The case went to the Connecticut Superior Court and resulted in the dismissal of the proposed recall vote entirely. Schine continued in her role as Chair and remained active in the town government. In June of 1971 Joan was quoted saying, “Today in Westport, we are engaged in a situation in which the forces and agents with the most power reign temporarily in an eternal “king of the hill” struggle.”  

Where Are We Today?

Project Concern continued and expanded, evolving into Project Choice, and paved the way for programs like Open Choice and A Better Chance which continue today. Despite hard-won gains, the fight for true equity in schools continued leading one scholar to note in his article “Nineteenth Century De Jure School Segregation in Connecticut”: 

“It becomes increasingly evident that Connecticut’s response to the problem of racial isolation in its public schools has been in the past and is now characterized by flashes of decisiveness and statesmanship, interspersed with periods of anguished vacillation.” 

Today, Connecticut student body is almost equally divided between White and BIPOC students. Yet the state’s school districts remain highly segregated. White children largely attend schools with 75% other white children and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) children attend schools with 75% other BIPOC children. In 1996 the state Supreme Court ruled on Sheff Vs. O’Neill, finding that the Hartford School District was violating the state’s anti-segregation clauses. However, with little guidance or benchmarks toward achieving desegregation by 2003, little progress had been made.  

To learn more about artists, activists, and educators who impacted Westport and our African American community visit our Remembered exhibition with the button below.

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Fighting for Freedom: Black Soldiers in the Civil War and Connecticut’s 29th Colored Regiment

by Michelle Shen

Contributing Writer: Talia Moskowitz

The Emancipation Proclamation, signed in January 1863, freed enslaved people in the rebelling Southern states and allowed for the enlistment of African American soldiers into the Union military. On May 22nd of the same year, the United States Department of War issued General Order No. 143 which established the Bureau of Colored Troops. On November 13th, 1863, Colonel Dexter R. Wright and Colonel Benjamin S. Pardee proposed a bill authorizing Connecticut Governor William A. Buckingham to organize regiments of “colored” infantry. Connecticut Democrats, including Westport’s representative John Wheeler, denounced the bill. They argued that it would unleash “a horde of African barbarians” onto the South. They believed that the North would lose if Black soldiers were allowed to fight, alleging that Black soldiers were cowardly and disgraceful.

Nonetheless, Governor Buckingham authorized the bill, calling volunteers to make up the 29th Regiment Colored Volunteers. The response from the community of color in Connecticut was immediate and enthusiastic. In 1860, according to the census, less than 1.2% of Westport’s population was Black. While Black men made up .4% of the Westport population—only 14 individuals—13 enlisted. The 29th Connecticut Colored Infantry Regiment was organized at Fair Haven, Connecticut, under the command of Colonel William B. Wooster and mustered into service on 8 March 8th, 1864. In a state where 1.8% of the population was Black, the 1,600 Black men who enlisted made up 94% of the African American community who were eligible to volunteer.

Connecticut’s 29th Regiment with soldiers standing in a line
Connecticut’s 29th Regiment in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Photos of Connecticut’s 29th Regiment, taken in Beaufort, South Carolina, 1864. (Library of Congress)

By January 1864, more than 1,200 Black men volunteered to join the 29th regiment. 400 of those joined the overflow colored regiment, the 30th, in January 1864. The 30th was later folded into the 31st Colored Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into service April 29th, 1864, on Hart Island in New York City.  

On January 29th, 1864, the soldiers of the 29th and 30th regiments listened to an address at the mouth of the Mill River in Fair Haven, Connecticut by the famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who told them: 

You are pioneers of the liberty of your race. With the United States cap on your head, the United States eagle on your belt, the United States musket on your shoulder, not all the powers of darkness can prevent you from becoming American citizens. And not for yourselves alone are you marshaled—you are pioneers—on you depends the destiny of four millions of the colored race in this country. If you rise and flourish, we shall rise and flourish. If you win freedom and citizenship, we shall share your freedom and citizenship.

— Frederick Douglass, 1864

The 29th Regiment was present and took part in the last attacks against the Confederate capital city of Richmond, Virginia, in April 1865 and were among the first to triumphantly march through Richmond’s streets. The 29th Regiment continued to fight after the war was “over” and reported for duty in Texas alongside their Connecticut brethren in the 31st. They aided in the efforts to enforce the emancipation of enslaved people in Galveston and oversee the peaceful transition of power, heading to Texas on June 10th and remaining until they were ordered to muster out of service on October 14th, 1865. 

There are fourteen members of the 29th Regiment listed as Westport residents. They are: Private (Pvt.) Samuel Benson, Pvt. Thomas Benson, Pvt. James Burns, Pvt. John Frye, Pvt. Thomas Gregory, Musician Frank Jackson, Pvt. Joseph H. Jackson, Pvt. William H. Jackson, Pvt. William H. Johnson (1st), Pvt. William H. Johnson (2nd), 1st Lieutenant Louis R. McDonough, Pvt. John Thompson, Pvt. Charles C. Williams, and Pvt. Charles Yan Tross. (Note: You may notice a discrepancy between our previous claim that 13 Black Westport residents enlisted, yet 14 names are listed here. That is because Louis R. McDonough was White.) 

Visit Our Exhibit

Interested in learning more about the Civil War in Westport? Visit our student-curated exhibit, “Reluctant Liberators: Westport in the Civil War.” The exhibit is free to view in our programs gallery and on display until November 11th, 2023.

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