Henry Miyatake
There will be a community memorial event for redress activist Henry Miyatake on Saturday, December 6, 2014, at NVC Memorial Hall, 1212 S King Street, Seattle, WA 98144. A pre-event social, with light refreshments, will begin at 1:00 PM. The memorial program will be from 2:00-3:00 PM.
In 1973, Henry led a team of Seattle volunteers that developed the Seattle Plan which called for individual payments to anyone removed by the government during World War II. This plan was eventually introduced as legislation into Congress in 1979 by Congressman Mike Lowry. Although this bill died in committee, a future redress bill was finally passed in Congress and signed by President Reagan in 1988. Henry was also among the key organizers of the first Day of Remembrance held in 1978 at the Puyallup Fairgrounds, site of the wartime Puyallup Assembly Center that incarcerated over 7,000 Japanese Americans.
Henry passed away in September 2014 in Auburn, WA. The community memorial event is open to the public and is an opportunity for people who knew Henry or who were involved with redress to come together and celebrate Henry’s life. (end)