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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO
A photo of Won-Joon Yoon and a Korean flag form the center of a memorial to Yoon outside the Korean United Methodist Church of Bloomington, Ind., Monday, July 5, 1999. Yoon, a 26-year-old Indiana University student, was shot and killed by white supremacist Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, who targeted minorities in a deadly Fourth of July weekend shooting spree in two states.
‘NO HATE SPEECH. NO HATE CRIMES.
NOT IN OUR TOWN.
NOT ANYWHERE.’ IU graduate student Won-Joon Yoon was murdered on July 4, 1999, by a white supremacist on a three-day shooting spree targeting black, Asian and Jewish people across two states. By Abby Malala abbridge@iu.edu | @abbymalala
A memorial stone sits on the front lawn of Bloomington’s Korean United Methodist Church on East Third Street, passed by people who don’t know who it’s memorializing. The man who died on July 4, 1999 was named Won-Joon Yoon. He was a member of the church. He was 26. What the memorial doesn’t say is Yoon’s death was the culmination of a three-day long shooting spree across Illinois and Indiana committed by a known white supremacist who had been spreading hate in Bloomington for over a year. It doesn’t say Yoon was murdered in broad daylight on the church’s front lawn. * * * The Fourth of July fell on a Sunday in 1999. Yoon had just been accepted to IU’s doctoral economics program after completing bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. Yoon wanted to return home to South Korea for the summer before he began his career at IU but moved to Bloomington to familiarize himself with his new college town. His father insisted it was a good idea, according to an IDS article. He had only been living in Bloomington for about a month and a half when the Fourth of July rolled around. As Yoon waited outside the Korean United Methodist Church with fellow congregants on Sunday morning, 21-year-old Benjamin Nathaniel “August” Smith fired four shots into the crowd from his car parked at the front of the church. Two shots hit Yoon in the lower back. Fellow IU student Pyung Ho Kim was next to Yoon when the shooting occurred. Kim said in an interview with the Indiana
Daily Student the next day he thought the sounds of gunfire were firecrackers. It wasn’t until a bleeding Yoon fell on Kim that anyone had realized what had happened. The shooting occurred at 10:54 a.m. By 11:47 a.m., Yoon was dead. The Bloomington Police Department reported an unidentified man followed Smith’s light blue 1994 Ford Taurus all the way to Nashville, Indiana, noting the license plate number and bringing the information back to officers in Bloomington. Later that day, Smith stole a van from a gas station in Ina, Illinois, after abandoning his own vehicle. He was pursued in a police chase down a two-lane highway in southern Illinois. Ultimately Smith committed suicide 37 miles away in Salem, Illinois. He was pronounced dead at about 10:40 p.m. Sunday. * * * Though he hadn’t yet started classes at IU, Yoon helped count ballots for the IU Board of Trustees election. He also had a passion for airplanes and a cat named SoHo. Yoon had flown to the United States from his hometown of Seoul, South Korea to begin his bachelor’s degree in aviation management at SIU, according to an Indiana Daily Student report. He went on to complete a master’s in economics before moving to Bloomington. Flowers were piled around a framed photo of Yoon at a July 6 press conference on the lawn of the Korean United Methodist Church. Mourners added flowers as Yoon’s father Shin Ho Yoon expressed his grief over the loss of his only son. “With his death, gone are the dreams, hopes and happiness my family has had with my son,” he said, according to an IDS report. “He was gunned down by one insane, full of racial hatred,
Won-Joon Yoon
young American man.” Despite losing his son, Yoon’s father said he still saw Bloomington and IU as a safe, welcoming place after witnessing the community’s outpouring of support for Won-Joon. In a letter to the IDS published on July 8, 1999, an ex-girlfriend of Yoon’s remembered his devotion to his religion and his kindness. “The Won-Joon I knew was a sensitive, caring and religiously devout individual who enjoyed and appreciated America’s diversity while maintaining a quiet pride about his Korean heritage,” Abigail Baker wrote. Baker also called for Americans to take action against the gun violence happening in America at the time. Just months earlier a shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado had claimed the lives of 15 people, including both shooters. “Wake up, America!” Baker wrote. “These tragedies might seem distant now, but next time, it could happen to someone you know — or even to you.” Yoon was cremated. The urn carrying his ashes was at a memorial service in his honor at the Musical Arts Center on the evening of July 12. The service was called a “Community Gather to Heal and Unite” and was orga-
nized by Bloomington United, a group of prominent members of the community who had come together to combat hate. Over 3,000 people went to the memorial service. Several founding members of Bloomington United still live and work in Bloomington and remember the aftermath of Yoon’s death. Rabbi Sue Silberberg, director of the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center, recalled the MAC overflowing with supporters, many spilling out into the lobby and the front lawn. The shooting attracted national attention. President Bill Clinton sent U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and one of his assistants, Benjamin Johnson, to speak at the memorial. Members of Bloomington United, university representatives and city representatives including then-Mayor John Fernandez also spoke. Melanie Castillo-Cullather, director of IU’s Asian Culture Center, cried as she gave an emotional speech at the memorial. “While they are learning to find their classrooms, they are also learning this folklore of fear,” she said, according to an IDS article. “How safe are we when there are so many hate groups out there? We can’t continue to live in fear or behind locked doors.” A candlelight march from the MAC to the Korean United Methodist Church ended the memorial. Beverly Calender-Anderson worked for United Way at the time of Yoon’s murder and now works as the director of Bloomington’s Community and Family Resources Department. She said Yoon’s memorial was one of the moments that made her fall in love with the Bloomington community. “It was probably one of the most moving events I’ve ever SEE YOON, PAGE 3