A Rallying Cry: Vincent Chin's Death and the Birth of A Movement

Van Ong said he never thought the hatred would come to that. Ong was the nurse on staff when a 27-year-old Chinese American was wheeled into the emergency room of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit on June 19, 1982.

"I could tell he was Asian but he didn't look the way he did on his license," Ong said of that night. "His head was so battered in, it looked like a watermelon. It was so sad."

The 27-year-old man was Vincent Chin. Two men had just beat him with a baseball bat following a racially charged altercation at a Highland Park strip club called Fancy Pants. Chin died four days later.

On March 18, 1983, Wayne County Judge Charles Kaufman would find Chin's murderers guilty of manslaughter. They would both receive a $3,000 fine and three years probation. After the sentencing, Kaufman reportedly said: "These aren't the kind of men you sent to jail, you fit the punishment to the criminal, not the crime."

A movement begins in Ferndale

Chin's beating death and the subsequent lenient sentencing of the assailants would become a rallying cry for the Asian Pacific American movement.

"Such a light sentence for such a vicious crime was a shocking wake up call to Asian Americans," said Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, journalist and activist.

The movement would begin at Ferndale's Golden Star restaurant, now the , where Chin worked as a waiter on the weekends. The movement, seeded by Chin's death, would lead to key changes in Michigan law.

Those accomplishments were commemorated Wednesday in Ferndale.

At Nine Mile and Woodward, not far from where the movement held its first meetings in the backroom of the Golden Star, the Michigan Bar Association dedicated a plaque to Chin and the legal milestones reached as a result of his murder. It was the 34th in a statewide Legal Milestones series.

A second plaque, from Ferndale, commemorates the city as the birthplace of the Asian-American civil rights movement.

The night of June 19, 1982

Before Chin and Ong crossed paths, Chin was celebrating. His buddies took him to Fancy Pants, a strip club in Highland Park, for his bachelor's party.

"It was there they found two autoworkers" – Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz – "who, like many at the time, blamed the Japanese for the U.S. auto industry troubles," Wang said.

While in the bar, Chin and the two men exchanged words, anti-Asian remarks were made, a scuffle ensured and both parties were thrown out. Wang said Ebens was heard saying: "It's because of you little m-----f------ that we're out of work."

The altercation waned in the parking lot and Chin and his buddies went to a nearby McDonald's. Ebens and Nitz followed.

"Nitz held him in a bear hug while Ebens struck Chin's head four times with a baseball bat, cracking his skull," Wang said. "Vincent Chin died four days later. His wedding guests attended his funeral instead."

A unifying cause

"There was an outrage in the Asian American community. They chose to meet (at the Golden Star) and try to figure out what to do in light of the of the sentence given to the killers," said Roland Hwang, vice-chairman of the Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission. "There was outrage, serious outrage."

This outrage led to the formation of the American Citizens for Justice (ACJ), a pan-Asian American activist group that mobilized and demanded a retrial against the two men.

Chin's beating death and the slap on the wrist the two killers received mobilized the Asian Americans around this one unified cause. There were protest rallies and remembrance vigils across the nation in cities such as Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. Wang said it brought together Asian Americans of all ethnicities as never before.

"It was then that the Asian American civil rights movement was born," Wang said.

As the movement grew, it continued to fight against the sentencing of Ebens and Nits. There was a subsequent civil rights trial in Detroit, where Nitz was acquitted but Ebens was found guilty and sentences to 25 years in prison. Then there was a retrial in Cincinnati, where both were acquitted of charges. Then came a civil suit where Nitz was required to pay $50,000 and Ebens $1.5 million. Neither paid a dime.

To this day, both men, Nitz who held Chin down while Ebens swung the bat that killed the 27-year-old Chinese American, have not spent one night in jail for the assault.

Chin's death changed the law

During Ebens and Nitz's trial, the Chin's family was not allowed to address the court. "The Chins had no opportunity to talk about the loss of Vincent Chin and what that meant to the family," Hwang said. These "impact statements" are now standard in trials involving violent crimes.

The Chin case also exposed the lack of mandatory minimum sentencing in the Michigan justice system. Before Vincent Chin's murder, Michigan judges had no mandatory minimum sentencing and could pass down extremely lax sentences. Mandatory minimum sentencing is now law.

"This case continues to resonate in the Asian American community because of its significance to the Asian American community," Hwang said.

The dedication in Ferndale

"Vincent Chin worked right here in our midst in the (former) Golden Star restaurant," Hwang said. "He was just a working type person, worked as a draftsman, worked as a waiter. In may ways he's just like us. Until that evening when tragedy befell him."

"Diversity is not something to be feared or simply tolerated," Ferndale Mayor Craig Covey said, a longtime activist for gay rights. "Diversity, it is a great strength of our country and it is something to be welcomed and appreciated and embraced."

Covey's words and the dedication to Chin came just a few hours after another milestone in tolerance and diversity became a part of America as President Barack Obama signed into law the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act, allowing gays and lesbians to openly serve in the military.

"The people of Ferndale are proud to host this memorial and we stand with Vincent Chin and all of the residents of southeast Michigan who believe in fairness and justice," Covey said.

The plaque states the Chin's last whispered words were, "It's not fair." This last whisper of his became the rallying cry for the entire APA movement, a rallying cry that began here in Ferndale.