Tomekichi Homma was one of the foremost human rights activists in the Japanese community in Canada. He sued the B.C. government for refusing to put his name on the voter's list. The B.C. Supreme Court ruled in his favour, and the ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada. However, the Privy Council of Britain overturned the decision in 1902. In 1949 the B.C. legislature passed a bill that finally give Japanese Canadians in B.C. the provincial vote. Sadly, Homma passed away four years earlier in an internment camp.
Tomekichi Homma was one of the foremost human rights activists in the Japanese community in Canada. (photo: Japanese Canadian National Museum)
In 1991 a school in Steveston, B.C., Homma's first home, was named in his honour. (photo: courtesy of Yoshimaru Abe, Winnipeg)
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