<Begin Segment 8>

FC: Tell us about Jimmie Omura and the Rocky Shimpo.

MK: I...

FA: Did you read the Rocky Shimpo?

MK: I read one of his writings and naturally I was kind of impressed. Here is a man that has the courage to speak the truth. To me that was the truth.

FA: Who are we talking about?

MK: Omura's saying that we had a right to protest, legally. And that made a lot of sense, organize an organized resistance.

FC: How did you become familiar with the Rocky Shimpo and Omura's writing?

MK: Only thing I, only thing I became familiar with Omura was that one of our neighbors subscribed to his paper and one day he came running over with that article and said, "Hey, look at this, look at this," you know. So I just took a look at it. I already had my mind made up already though, but I was happy that there was people on the outside that would support our cause.

FC: Were you bullied into resisting?

MK: No, not at all. I can safely say I did it on my own.

[Interruption]

MK: No, I guess in reference to talking about the Fair Play Committee leaders and stuff like that or the, some other people on the Fair Play Committee, no, nothing like that. I did it on my own. I didn't know who Frank Emi was, I didn't know who James Omura was, I didn't meet him until 1974, thirty years after our trial.

FC: Just say the words, "Nobody forced me to resist."

MK: That's true. Nobody forced me to resist. They're trying to blame my parents and all that, but that's not true. I did it on my own. I was eighteen and if I didn't have my own mind then, there was no hope for me. Like I say, I never was a scholar or anything but when I went to school I really studied... in fact, the teachers drilled the Constitution into my mind, test after test after test, if I failed it, boy they made me take it home and read it over and tell me what's wrong and all this, so they really, one thing they did was really drill that Constitution into my head.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1993, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.