Newsletter

King Sunjong, the last king of the Joseon Dynasty and a tragic emperor of the Korean Empire, died on April 26, 1926. It was a time when independence movements and armed conflicts in Korea and abroad were losing momentum due to the ideological conflict among the leaders and imperial Japan's suppression in the name of so-called 'cultural rule' which started after the March 1st Movement and had been becoming increasingly clever.

King Sunjong's funeral was set to take place on June 10, and it was seen an occasion to have another public protest so as to rekindle the national movement. The June 10th Movement was planned and carried out solely by students, in part because they were not the main target of Japan's close watch following the March 1st Movement.

The students at Joongang High School and other high schools in the Tong-dong (通洞, near the present-day Toingin-dong, Seoul) area and the students at Yeonhui University and other universities in the Sajig-dong (社稷洞) area organized themselves into two groups and set about preparing a street demonstration and a printed manifesto that read:

"My fellow Korean people! Our worst enemy is capitalist and imperialist Japan.
My twenty-million compatriots! Let's fight to death!
Long live, long live the independent Korea!"

- June 10, 4259 (in Dangi Calender) Representatives of the Korean People: Kim Seong-su (金性洙), Choi Nam-seon (崔南善), and Choi Lin (崔麟)

Lee Seon-ho,
a student at
Joongang High
School and one
of the leaders
of the June 10th
Independence

An article about the June 10th Movement

Finally, in the morning of June 10, 1926, the bier carrying the coffin of King Sunjong left the palace through the Donhwa Gate and arrived at Pajogyo (the bridge over a brook which is presently a road in front of Danseongsa in Jongnu-gu, Seoul), when Lee Seon-ho (李先鎬) and other students at Joongang High School started shouting "Long live the independent Korea!" while distributing copies of the manifesto. Alarmed, the Japanese police immediately set out to arrest them. But the demonstration continued at intervals in other parts of Seoul, including Gwansugyo, Euljiro, Dongdaemun, and Dongmyo, and then spread to other regions of the country as well.

In the aftermath of the movement that day, two hundred students and youths were arrested in Seoul, or up to a thousand nationwide. The June 10th Movement failed to become a nationwide independence movement like the March 1st Movement because imperial Japan even sent the military force to suppress the protest. But it was still quite a significant movement that not only revived the national movement that was in a slump but inspired students in Gwangju to start the Gwangju Student Movement in 1929.

These young Koreans sacrificed themselves to recover their lost country. I wonder what they might mean to young Koreans these days struggling with extremely personal concerns about their studies, careers, or love. In this month of June, the month of remembering veterans fighting to defend our country, I feel the weight of those words.

Source of Reference : The entry on the June 10th Movement in the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture
http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Index?dataType=03
Pajogyo, where the June 10th Movement began
http://sajeok.i815.or.kr/ebook/ebookh01/book.html