Module 4: ‘Blue Jeans and Chima Jeogori Getting Together’
After journalist K. W. Lee published a two-part series about Chol Soo Lee’s life and murder conviction in the Sacramento Union, people took notice. A small group of socially conscious first-generation Korean Americans in the Sacramento, California, area formed the Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee. As news of the case spread, young Asian Americans also mobilized. Together, they built a pan-Asian, multigenerational grassroots social movement to free Chol Soo. For six years, these disparate groups—young and old, immigrant and US-born, conservative and progressive—united in common cause to help a stranger.
Image 44.04.01 — Young activists, pictured here at a late 1970s protest, formed the backbone of the Free Chol Soo Lee movement.
Courtesy of Ken Yamada, Unity Archive Project. Metadata ↗
Why did Chol Soo Lee’s story resonate with other Korean immigrants?
In what ways did the younger members of the Free Chol Soo Lee movement try to raise awareness and funds for his defense?
How did the support of the Asian American community affect Chol Soo Lee’s case, especially in the courtroom?
