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Originally Posted by Heidi Maiers
Garth, .... I do hope you will let us all know how the unveiling goes on Monday!
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Dear Heidi,
It was a splendid affair. There were perhaps a couple hundred in attendance in Courtroom 653 in City Hall, in Philadelphia. Several prominent Asian American Judges spoke. Mayor Street had a few kind words too. I heard a number of positive comments to the effect that the portrait captured the Judge's personality. The Judge's son-in-law added that the stern look in the portrait recalls a time when he was dating the Judge's daughter and returned the family car without gas in the tank!
Following the Ceremony, was a sumptuous reception downstairs within City Hall's tower, in Conversation Hall. There was a lot of yummy good food and a number of photo opps too. I enlisted the Judge's grandson to help distribute a hundred photo business cards featuring the Judge's portrait (this made a good keepsake souvenir for everyone).
When asked if I was proud of my accomplishment in this portrait, I responded that my thoughts were more along the lines of pride of Judge Marutani as a exemplary example of an American citizen. For all he has done to champion human rights and civil rights, it makes me wonder how pale my own life accomplishments are in his shadow.
The following is a short biography of the Judge from the program:
THE HONORABLE WILLIAM M. MARUTANI
The Honorable William M. Marutani served as a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County from 1975 to 1986. When appointed to the bench in 1975, Judge Marutani became the first Asian American outside of the Pacific Coast states to preside as a judge of general jurisdiction. Judge Marutani was later elected to a full ten-year term in 1977. He issued the decision requiring the all-boys Central High School to admit female students in 1983.
In 1942, Judge Marutani, a second-generation Japanese American, served six months in an American internment camp following the Pearl Harbor attack. Later during the war, he served in the U.S. Military Intelligence Service (MIS).
As an attorney, Judge Marutani participated in the civil rights drives in the South and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington for the Japanese American Citizens League. From 1960 to 1970, he also served as a volunteer civil rights lawyer in cases involving the desegregation of schools and the promotion of voter registration drives in Mississippi. In 1967, Judge Marutani appeared on argument in
Loving v. Virginia, a seminal case which struck down anti-miscegenation laws in 17 states.
Judge Marutani has also served on numerous civic and charitable boards and commissions. Most notably, in 1981 he was appointed to the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians by President Jimmy Carter. The Commission concluded that the internment of Japanese Americans was the unjust result of racism, wartime hysteria and a failure of political leadership.
Garth
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