Sung Kim
President

The Korean- American Association of Greater Cleveland serves as a bridge that connects Korean- Americans to the American mainstream in various fields of specialty, including education, culture, vocational help, and community affair.

Declaration of Korean Independence
March 1, 1919

We hereby declare that Korea is an independent nation, and that we Koreans are autonomous people. In so doing we clearly convey our great message to all nations of the world that all human beings are equal. We intend the same message for the countless generations of our progeny to empower them to forever enjoy their due right to live as a free and autonomous people.

We make this declaration with the authority of our history spanning five thousand years; we proclaim it widely and articulate it, backed by the collective loyalty of twenty million people; we assert it for the sake of their free and unimpeded development; we proffer it to join the movement toward global reform propelled by the conscience rooted deep in human nature. As we act in obedience to an evident command of Heaven in keeping with the trend of the age, expressing the right of all people to live together, nothing under Heaven can deter or suppress us.

For the first time in several thousand years of our history we fell under the yoke of a foreign invader, and have suffered for more than ten years as victims of its ideology of aggression and hegemony, a legacy of the bygone age. How much we have lost with the loss of our right to life! How much damage the dignity and reputation of our nation has suffered! How much opportunity we have lost to contribute to the current of world culture with refreshing keen spirit and creative power!

Oh! To shake off our old hurt, to be relieved of our present pain, to eliminate future threat, to restore our people’s conscience and their bodies withered under oppression, to enable all individuals to cultivate their character, to avoid bequeathing a painful and shameful legacy to our children, to lead all our children and all their children to enjoy felicitous and happy life, we should first and foremost secure the independence of our nation. Today each of the twenty million hearts is armed with a dagger, with the help coming from the common human nature and the conscience of the age deploying armies of justice and humanity. What force, therefore, can we not defeat as we pursue our goal? What plans can we not build as we deliberate in wait?

We shall not obsess with condemning Japan’s perfidious violations of terms of the Protection Treaty of the Year of Byung Ja that belie the promises Japan had strongly made. We shall not obsess with chiding Japan’s disloyalty for treating like a colony our ancient land that has been inherited from dynasty to dynasty, where scholars in classroom and statesmen in the public arena respectively attended to their noble missions, or for wallowing in the pleasure of conquest in treating our cultured people like primitives, or for disparaging the ancient foundation of our society and the superior mind of our people. We who are busy with self-criticism have no time to blame others. We who are busy preparing for the present have no time to judge and punish past acts.
Our only task for the present is to build ourselves, not to destroy others. It is to set our new destiny under the solemn command of conscience, not to reject others out of jealousy, old grudge or passing passion. It is to rectify an unnatural, irrational, wrong situation brought about as a victim of the vanity of Japanese politicians bound to outdated ideology and power structure and to pave a straight, natural and rational path toward the original state based on principles.

Witness the divide between the two nations with such divergent understandings widening and deepening to the point of making their reconciliation impossible subsequent to their annexation that our nation did not want. The forced event has resulted in persecution, discrimination and inequality falsified by statistics. Should we not realize that correcting past wrongs with a courageous and daring resolve and opening an amicable relationship based on true understanding and consensus is the best way for both nations to avoid a calamity and invite blessings?

And Japan’s forceful repression of twenty million people seething with resentment will not only hamper the preservation of lasting peace in Asia but also will intensify the fear and jealousy of the four hundred million Chinese on whom the stability or otherwise of Asia depends, consequently will bring about a tragic collective collapse of Asia. The independence of Korea today will simultaneously enable the Koreans to achieve prosperity, let Japan leave its erroneous path and accept the weighty responsibility of supporting Asia, free China from such anxiety and fear as even haunt its dreams, and build a stair to world peace and happiness by building peace and happiness in Asia, its essential region. How can our action be a matter of emotion?

Lo! A new heaven and earth unfold before us! The age of force is receding; an age of morality is dawning. The spirit of humanity, ground, refined and nurtured through the past century, is beginning to shine the light of new civilization upon human history. A new spring has come to the world to hasten the regeneration of all life. Now that after a season of snow and ice in which we could hardly breathe we are entering a season of balmy breeze and warm sunlight, new air returning to heaven and earth, we, riding on a wave of global transformation, have no qualms or reason to hesitate. We shall relish the joy of untrammeled life with our inherent liberty; we shall exercise our abundant creativity to let our nation blossom in the spirit of spring pervading the world.

We shall shake ourselves and rise. Conscience and truth are with us. Men and women, old and young, we shall break out of our gloomy old hut to be reborn with nature. The souls of our myriad forebears secretly keep watch for us; the historical current of the world protects us. If only we begin we shall succeed. We shall only march with vigor toward light.

Three Public Pledges

Item: As we rise today with the people’s demand for justice, humanity, life and prosperity, we shall exercise the spirit of liberty and shall never act with hatred of others.

Item: We shall, to the last man and to the last moment, freely and fully express the people’s valid will.

Item: We shall maximally respect order in all our actions and shall thereby render our claims and attitude honorable and legitimate.

On the first day of the month of March in the four thousand two hundred and fifty second year of the founding of the Korean nation,

Representatives of the Korean people:

Translated by Chin-Tai Kim, Ph.D.
February 27, 2008
Ctk&KAAGC©02/2008