A plaque honouring pioneering Japanese Canadian civil rights advocate Tomekichi Homma was unveiled in Steveston on May 23, recognizing his historic fight for voting rights more than a century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dedication ceremony took place outside the historic Japanese Fishermen\u2019s Benevolent Society building on Moncton Street, where community members, local leaders and descendants gathered to commemorate Homma\u2019s legacy. The plaque recognizes the landmark Cunningham v. Homma<\/em> case, now designated a National Historic Event by Parks Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Richmond Mayor Malcolm Broady and counselor Andy Hobbs attended the ceremony alongside members of the Japanese Canadian community and civic representatives. Speakers reflected on Homma\u2019s role in challenging discriminatory voting laws in British Columbia and his lasting impact on civil rights in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Homma, one of Steveston\u2019s earliest Japanese settlers, became a prominent community leader and advocate after arriving in Canada in the late 1800s. Although he ultimately lost his appeal before the Privy Council in 1902, historians say his legal challenge helped lay the groundwork for future equality and voting rights reforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A plaque honouring pioneering Japanese Canadian civil rights advocate Tomekichi Homma was unveiled in Steveston on May 23, recognizing his historic fight for voting rights more than a century ago. The dedication ceremony took place outside the historic Japanese Fishermen\u2019s Benevolent Society building on Moncton Street, where community members, local leaders and descendants gathered to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richmondunited.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}