Title

Speech, "A Place Called Rohwer" by Joseph Boone Hunter

Creator

Files

Date Original

1981 May

Description

Speech given to the Rotary Club in Little Rock, Arkansas, in May 1981 by Joseph Hunter. Hunter, who was part of a documentary called, "A Place Called Rohwer," talked about his participation in the film and about the people who lived in Rohwer during their relocation. The film is housed at the Arkansas State Archive in the Joseph Boone Hunter papers supplement II, MS.000653.

Biographical/Historical Note

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9022, creating the War Relocation Authority (WRA). The WRA selected ten sites in which to imprison more than 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, over two-thirds of whom were American citizens. Two of these centers were in the Arkansas Delta, one at Rohwer in Desha County, and the other at Jerome in sections of Chicot and Drew counties. Over 16,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated in these two centers between October 1942 and November 1945. The Japanese American Citizens League was founded in 1929 by existing Nisei organizations in California and Washington and is the oldest Asian American civil rights organization in the United States. Joseph Boone Hunter was born on December 27, 1886, and died in September 1987. His career included teaching in public schools and colleges, serving as an Army chaplain with active foreign service, missionary work in the Far East and Middle East, work in the United States Civil Service, and a score of interim pastorates.

Physical Description

Documents, five pages, 8" x 10.5"

Subjects

World War, 1939-1945--Concentration Camps--United States--Arkansas; Japanese; Japanese Americans--Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945; Relocation camps; Military camps; Housing; Military personnel; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Pearl Harbor; 442nd Regiment; 100th Battalion

Contributor

Joseph Boone Hunter

Geographical Area

Little Rock, Pulaski County (Ark.)

Language

English

Identifier

MS.000119, Box 1, Folder 90, Item 1

Resource Type

Text

Collection

Joseph Boone Hunter collection, MS.000119

Publisher

Arkansas State Archives

Contributing Entity

Arkansas State Archives

Recommended Citation

Speech, "A Place Called Rohwer" by Joseph Boone Hunter, Joseph Boone Hunter collection, Arkansas State Archives, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Rights

Use and reproduction of images held by the Arkansas State Archives without prior written permission is prohibited. For information on reproducing images held by the Arkansas State Archives, please call 501-682-6900 or email at state.archives@arkansas.gov.

Disciplines

United States History

Preview

Additional Content

Hazel Retherford papers, MS.000643; Amon Guy Thompson papers, MG04582-MG04586; Austin Smith papers, 1942-1945, MG04350; Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps, MG01299; Community Analysis Reports and Community Analysis Trend Reports of the War Relocation Authority, 1942-1946, MG03846-MG03847; Japanese Camp papers, MG03848-MG03869