Someone on the discoverfredho list just informed me of the passing of Wayne Lum, a New York-based Asian American activist and radical political organizer. He wanted me to convey this sad news to Fred Ho, because they had conversed about Wayne’s cancer diagnosis. But Wayne was known to a great many people, including myself. I think we should celebrate the life of Wayne, who is an inspiration to hundreds if not thousands of people.
I met Wayne through his work with the David Wong Support Committee. This committee, which I helped found with Yuri Kochiyama, was dedicated to reversing the murder conviction of a Chinese man wrongly convicted of murder. David’s case was very complicated from a legal standpoint, having lost several different appeals.
Wayne was not involved in the beginning, but somehow adopted David Wong’s cause with an incredible fervor. And in the entire history of the organization, I think that he played the most pivotal role in the David Wong movement. I would go as far as to say that he was responsible for knocking on the door of the chief witness against David Wong, and, with the help of another lawyer, convincing that witness to recant his testimony. The reversal of the key witness’ testimony was the key to the eventual freeing of David Wong. As a result of Wayne reaching that witness, David lives as a free man in Hong Kong today. (I reached David, who is very sorry for Wayne’s passing.)
Wayne and his wife, Gloria, made an indomitable organizing pair. Wayne was constantly going to different campuses to speak to students and organize their help in the movement to free David Wong. In fact, because of Wayne’s work, it was considered very trendy in the 90′s to be a member of the David Wong Support Committee. One lawyer for a Chinatown nonprofit once told me that the majority of job applicants who were socially-conscious Asian American college students listed “David Wong Support Committee” on their resumes.
The committee was very inclusive, and that caused its share of problems. Before Wayne and Gloria, the committee had an ever-changing leadership, which was not above harboring petty gripes and rivalries which distracted from the goal of freeing David Wong. But Wayne was a serious leftist and a no-B.S. kind of guy. He was very easy to work with, but demonstrated by example a work ethic that everyone admired, and it kept the pettiness in line.
I remember how Wayne continued to pester me about going to the crucial court hearing in Plattsburg, New York, the evidentiary hearing that would eventually lead to David’s freedom. I didn’t want to go, because I was considered the “old guard” and I didn’t want to be in the way. I represented Linda Owens in her request to get cameras in the courtroom, but that request was in writing and I did not feel obligated to be there in person.
I don’t remember what changed my mind, but at the last minute, somehow Wayne got me into a rental van and we were speeding up the highway to Plattsburg, New York. And so I got to see with my own eyes the witnesses who not only recanted their testimony falsely framing David for the murder, but I also heard the witnesses who recalled another inmate’s confession to the terrible crime.
After David was freed, Wayne and Gloria quietly went on to champion the rights of other Asian Americans, caught in an unjust system. They are not the types to rest on their laurels. I went to one of Wayne’s events where he was organizing to bring attention to the unfair treatment of Captain James Yee, the muslim army chaplain at Guantanamo Bay who was held as a prisoner of war, tortured, and then freed, without any evidence being brought against him. Wayne and Gloria also organized for war resisters all over the country.
I was not aware that Wayne was sick with cancer, and I was not aware that Fred Ho was friends with Wayne, but I certainly see that it made sense, since they were both committed Asian American radicals, and Fred had supported the David Wong Support Committee.
Of all many the activists I have known, Wayne Lum stands out because his activism consistently stood for something. And that is, that he focused his attention on individuals who were unjustly treated in the American system, and he taught us that fighting for these individuals had a deeper meaning of fighting for rights of all of us. He was a master of linking the fight for one person’s rights to his broader social vision for a better world. He saw himself as an Asian American, but his concern was not for Asians only. He merely used the history of discrimination against Asians as a lens to expose the broader landscape of injustices he was concerned about. He brought a manifesto compelling us all to fight for justice, but his manifesto was not in ink, but written with his very life. And so that’s why it is not surprising that he and Fred were friends, because in many ways, they were on parallel paths. And I am honored to have known him.