Fred Korematsu, the unassuming Oakland draftsman who unsuccessfully challenged the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II -- but was vindicated 40 years later -- died Wednesday of respiratory failure at the Marin County home of his daughter.
Korematsu was 86.
To many Japanese-Americans and other civil libertarians, Korematsu was a civil rights icon who risked not only the legal wrath of his own government, but the scorn of his own people when in 1944 he challenged the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans.
Details here from the San Jose Mercury News.