Ed Ennis Dies; Fought Japanese-American Evacuation
Ed Ennis, who had vigorously opposed the government’s evacuation and internment of the Japanese-Americans during World War II, died on this day.
Ennis had been in the U.S. Justice Department and was head of the Alien Enemy Control Unit during World War II. Attorney General Francis Biddle caved in to pressure from the War Department and West Coast politicians and, at the critical final meeting, endorsed the proposal. Ennis reportedly was near tears after the meeting and considered resigning from the Justice Department. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 ordering the evacuation, which many historians regard as the greatest civil liberties disaster in American history.
After the war, Ennis became an active civil libertarian and served as Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the ACLU from 1969 to 1976.
Read the New York Times obituary on Ed Ennis here
Learn more about Ennis and the Japanese-American tragedy: Peter Irons, The Story of the Japanese-American Internment Cases (1983)