He hitchhiked to prison to challenge the Constitution.
April 23, 1918: Gordon Hirabayashi was born in Seattle, Washington.
In 1942, as the United States imposed curfews and forced removal orders on Japanese Americans, Gordon Hirabayashi made a decision that few others would.
He would not comply.
A student at the University of Washington and a devout Christian influenced by Quaker beliefs, Hirabayashi believed the Constitution did not allow the government to single out an entire group of people based on ancestry. So he did something unusual.
He turned himself in.
Not out of guilt, but with the intention of being arrested.
Courtesy of the University of Washington Press
Civilian Exclusion Orders posted in 1942. These notices imposed curfews and led to the forced removal of Japanese Americans.
Gordon Hirabayashi as a student at the University of Washington, 1938. It was here that his faith, conscience, and belief in the Constitution took shape.
Courtesy of Joe Mabel
Gordon Hirabayashi’s draft registration card, where he wrote in the left-side margin: “I am a conscientious objector.”
Gordon Hirabayashi as a University of Washington student, studying the very system he would later challenge.
Testing the Constitution
Hirabayashi wanted his case to go to court.
He believed that if the Constitution was truly what it claimed to be, it would protect him.
He admitted openly that he had violated the curfew and refused to report for removal. He invited prosecution, hoping the courts would confront the legality of the orders.
At first, even the ACLU refused to support him. But he persisted. His case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court.
Then, the system he challenged revealed its contradictions in unexpected ways.
Hitchhiking to Prison
After being sentenced, Hirabayashi was ordered to report to a prison camp in Arizona. The government, however, would not transport him.
Determined to keep fighting, he hitchhiked.
He made his way to prison on his own because he believed in the process he was testing.
When he arrived, officials realized he was late and considered sending him home. He refused. To him, that would have undermined everything.
He wasn’t going to leave.
Young Gordon Hirabayashi. He believed in the Constitution and was determined to test it. He hitchhiked to prison and insisted on being imprisoned.
Courtesy of Densho / NCRR Archives
Gordon Hirabayashi, who defied the curfew order during WWII and later had his conviction overturned, also testified at the 1981 CWRIC Hearings in Washington, D.C.
When researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga uncovered hidden government evidence, Peter Irons reached out to Gordon Hirabayashi, setting in motion the reopening of his case.
“I didn’t feel guilty because I hadn’t done anything wrong… They were wrong.” — Gordon Hirabayashi
Courtesy of Joe Mabel
Gordon Hirabayashi’s Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded in recognition of his stand and his vindication decades later.
The Constitution Did Come Through, Eventually
In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against him in Hirabayashi v. United States. The Court upheld the curfew imposed on Japanese Americans.
For Hirabayashi, it was a loss. But he did not walk away from the Constitution.
More than 40 years later, new evidence revealed that the U.S. government had knowingly withheld critical information from the courts — evidence showing there was no military necessity for the mass restrictions placed on Japanese Americans.
Hirabayashi’s case was reopened.
In 1986, his conviction was overturned. The legal system he had trusted and tested finally corrected itself.