In this talk Chuck Wollenberg, author of Rebel Lawyer: Wayne Collins and the Defense of Japanese American Rights, will discuss the life and the career of Wayne Collins, an uncompromising fighter for social justice with an equally uncompromising personality. Wollenberg will concentrate on Collins’ three most important cases, all stemming from the United States government’s actions against Japanese Americans during World War II: Korematsu v. United States, the Renunciants from Tule Lake, and the infamous “Tokyo Rose.” He will demonstrate that Collins was the most committed and uncompromising defender of Japanese American rights, and as a result he is one of the most important civil rights lawyers almost no one has ever heard of. Every generation of Americans needs lawyers like Collins to defend, preserve, and promote the inalienable rights promised by the Declaration of Independence and included in the Constitution.

This talk augments some of the materials featured in the Bancroft Gallery exhibition, Uprooted: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans, open weekdays 10 a.m.-4 p.m. through June 30, 2022. Learn more about the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement digital collections at The Bancroft Library.