Minoru Yasui featured in Obama Presidential Center Museum

The legacy of the late attorney Minoru Yasui is being featured in ‘Power of Words,’ a signature storytelling installation at the Barack Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago. The installation is a digital experience spanning four levels of the museum that explores how language and voice can inspire social progress.

The footage used in the installation is from a 1986 lecture Yasui delivered at the University of California, San Diego. In the archival recording, Yasui discusses the civic obligation to challenge government injustice, stating, “As an American citizen [and] as a lawyer, I felt that we owed at least the obligation AS A CITIZEN to tell our government THEY ARE WRONG.”

Yasui, the first Oregonian to receive the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, was a lifelong advocate for civil rights and democracy. His inclusion in the museum was facilitated through a collaboration between the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project and the Obama Foundation.