On 7 June 1973, a 20-year-old man named Chol Soo Lee was arrested for a gang-related murder in Chinatown, San Francisco. Lee was – as he put it in his memoir – a “young street punk” working odd jobs across the city. He was the only Korean in his community: playful and charismatic, testifies a friend.
Lee was arrested and imprisoned, but within Chinatown he was widely believed to be innocent. By the time he was retried and released, 10 years later, Lee had become an international symbol, bringing together an unprecedented coalition of pan-Asian-American activists to campaign for his freedom. He was interviewed on television. Supporters wrote him letters. A record called The Ballad of Chol Soo Lee was released to raise money for his defence fund. Why were so many strangers from around the world so invested in his life?
