Dr. Sammy Lee has a tale to tell.

Born in California in 1920, he was inspired by the 1932 LA Olympics to become a two-time Olympic gold diving champion. A respected doctor and veteran, he traveled the world and was family friends with Syngman Rhee, the first president of South Korea.

Yet his All-American success story is not entirely that.

The son of immigrants, he encountered discrimination that sounds horse and buggy today – outmoded from a different time.

Lee could not practice diving at private clubs because these pools were closed to Asians. During World War II, he once wore a badge: “I am Korean, not a Jap.” He won the 1953 Sullivan Award from the Amateur Athletic Union, but was turned down twice in 1954 trying to buy a house in all-white Garden Grove — until the media got involved.

Those are the facts, an outline for a story only Lee can tell. It’s the kind of the story the Center for Oral and Public History at Cal State Fullerton wants to capture.  [Orange County Register]

You can read more about Dr. Lee at the link, but I have featured Dr. Lee before here on the ROK Drop as part of my Koreans Who Mattered series.  It is good to see that Dr. Lee is still going strong at the age of 91.

Over a year ago, a new English language radio station started in Korea; an alternative to AFN and Arirang. It’s called TBS eFM and I can receive a broadcast from Seoul on 101.3 FM down in the Osan area. They are supposed to be starting to broadcast from Busan and Kwangju too. It has all kinds of programs from variety music hours with inane DJ banter to news and commentary shows.

I‘m hooked on one of their latter. It’s called This Morning and it’s moderated by a Korean American named Henry Shinn. The program is broadcast between 7 and 9 AM, Monday to Friday. I pick it up on my commute to work in my car and continue to listen from my computer at work from their ON Air feed.

I am what some would call a news junkie. When someone asks what I’m listening to on my Ipod, they are surprised to learn that it is not music, but downloaded news podcasts. I have long since given up with the consumer news on evening network and cable channels. Too superficial or too opinionated for me. I want my news presented the way Joe Friday insisted on information; “Just the facts ma’am. Just the facts.” Let me interpret them for myself. So, I download podcasts from NPR, CSPAN, BBC, The Economist and the Sunday morning network news programs. In these programs you find commentary from knowledgeable people with first person accounts of events.

The TBS eFM This Morning broadcast is just such a program. Mr. Shinn has interviews with key players on subjects from politics, economics, international affairs, and culture in Korea. I learn something new every day. However, I had been disappointed because I felt a valuable resource of information was not being preserved as podcasts. My disappointment ended this past week. All of it is now available as an AOD (Audio-On-Demand) service. An AOD is limited in that you must be connected to the Internet to listen to the audio stream online, but you can capture and save it with the right tools.

As examples of what’s available, I’ll refer you to what I thought were interesting interviews. Both with former U.S. Ambassdor to Korea, Mr. Donald Gregg. On June 25, the anniversary of the start of the Korean War, ambassador Gregg came on. He reveals something of his opinion about General MacArthur.

And there was the added complication that MacArthur, who had ignored Korea from his magisterial position in Tokyo. Apart from his brilliant stroke at Incheon, once he landed on the Peninsular, he drove north to the Chinese border, provoking Chinese intervention, despite the fact that the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington wanted him to stop at the narrow neck of North Korea that runs from sort of Anju on the west coast to Hungnam on the east coast. So you had an egotistical general who hadn’t been in the United States for 14 years taking charge of a war, running it for his own ends, with Harry Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington virtually helpless to control him.

He says something on revisionist ideas about what might have been had we not entered the war. He also related a conversation with a North Korean on why they find it difficult negotiating with us and our changing administrations.

Ambassador Gregg was also interviewed in August 19 on the legacy the former president Kim Dae Jung. He says he thinks president Kim “will come to be seen as really the father of democracy in South Korea.” He called the summit president Kim had with Kim Jung Il a “huge milestone in bringing reconciliation between North and South Korea.” He talks about the role he played as chief of station for the CIA in saving the life of president Kim in 1973. He also says that after the two American journalists were captured by the North Koreans he wrote to president Kim asking him to write to president Obama giving him advice on how to deal with the North Koreans. He later learned that when president Clinton visited Kim in May, Kim gave Clinton such a letter to be delivered to Obama. That may have been the beginning of Clinton’s involvement in freeing the journalist.

You can listen to both of those broadcasts directly on the TBS eFM website on the This Morning AOD page. The June 25 program is at no. 132 in the list. Each day’s program is provided in two separate hour long AOD streams. Ambassador Gregg came on at about 8:30 in each program so you will find him at about half way through the second hour’s AOD. The August 19 program is at no. 210.

There is a wealth of other good programs there, if you have the time to go through it. To make that easier, there is an Announcements page. It lists the programs titles and dates and maybe the name of a guest commentator. Clicking on the title link will give you more information about the day’s program.

If you appreciate getting in depth information from people who know what they are talking about, I’m sure you will find a lot that’s useful there.

Washington, DC School Superintendent, Michelle Rhee

Rhee at 38 years old has turned the Washington DC education system upside down with her programs of aggressive educational reforms, particularly in poor, minority schools.  These reforms have caused her to receive many detractors in the city’s entrenched educational bureaucracy that appears more concerned with their own job security then the educational well being of the city’s children.

Michelle Rhee may seem young to be a school superintendent of one of the nation’s largest school systems, but her professional career before becoming the Washington, DC school is superintendent is quite impressive.  She is the daughter of Korean immigrants who moved to Toledo, Ohio where she was born.  Rhee’s educational background includes a Bachelor’s Degree in government from Cornell University followed by a Master’s Degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  After finishing her education Rhee went on to join Teach for America which sends new college graduates to teach in low income communities in the United States.

Rhee was assigned to teach in a poor minority neighborhood in Baltimore for three years where she initially faced great challenges:

Rhee was placed in one of the lowest-performing schools in Baltimore as a second-grade teacher. “It was a total culture shock for me,” she recalls. While she was talking to her students as they lined up for lunch, one of the students fell down on the floor. “Each kid, as they were walking by, kicked the kid that was down,” Rhee says. “I was, like, ‘What are they doing?’ But it was like second nature to them. The kid is down. Kick him.”

Rhee was unable to stop the kids, or control them in the classroom for most of her first year. At Christmas, she went home scratching at huge welts on her arm. A doctor diagnosed stress. Her mother said, “You can apply for law school second semester.” Her father, a strong believer in the work ethic and rooting for the underdog, said, “Suck it up and get back in there.” [Newsweek]

However after the initial challenges she rededicated herself and worked hard to improve the educational scores of her students:

She says that she and a colleague worked day and night to prepare for their classes, and saw their group of kids go from the bottom of the heap to where 90% of them were scoring above the 90th percentile. “I don’t believe you can do this work, or be engaged in it at any level, unless you believe in your core that poor minority kids can achieve at the highest level despite all the obstacles.”  [Wall Street Journal]

Rhee (with parental consent) made the kids go to school on Saturdays and gave them two hours of homework a night, so they would “not watch TV or sit on the stoop or play Nintendo.” She slowly won the respect of parents. “My first year of teaching, they were, like, ‘We do not want the crazy Korean lady,’ and by the time I left, they were, ‘Where are you going? You can’t leave’.” [Newsweek]

Rhee would then go on to found in 1997 the The New Teacher Project that recruited highly qualified people to become teachers in America’s public education system.  Since its inception the program has recruited and certified 20,000 high quality people to become teachers.

Washington, DC Mayor, Adrian Fenty

Rhee’s aggressiveness in improving education level for minority children over the years did not go unnoticed as the newly elected mayor of Washington, DC, Adrian Fenty recruited Rhee to become his city’s superintendent.  After initially refusing the offer, Rhee finally agreed and since then she has pushed her aggressive educational reforms in all the Washington, DC area schools.

She began by closing nearly two dozen under-performing schools in the city and then by firing a number of school employees.  She then next took aim at under-performing teachers which meant she would have to take on the almighty teacher’s union:

That is not to say that Rhee is relaxed. She says she wakes up every morning with a “knot in my stomach,” and that she is “angry,” though “angry in a good way.” She is angry at a system of education that puts “the interests of adults” over the “interests of children,” i.e., a system that values job protection for teachers over their effectiveness in the classroom. Rhee is trying to change that system. In a way that few realistic observers thought was possible, she has a chance to succeed, not just in Washington, but also around the country. She is entering into a struggle with the local teachers union that will test whether an urban school district can weed out its weak teachers—a profound threat to politically powerful teachers unions nationwide. [Newsweek]

To give everyone an idea of how corrupt of a force the teacher’s union is that she was facing, the former head of the teacher’s union Barbara Bullock is currently serving a six and half year prison sentence for embezzling $4.6 million dollars from the union:

Former Washington Teachers’ Union president Barbara A. Bullock recounted in court yesterday how she dropped tens of thousands of union dollars a day in casual shopping and how she and her two fellow union leaders milked the union bank accounts to buy anything their hearts desired. [Washington Post]

Taking on a bureaucracy this corrupt is not going to be easy and that is the challenge that lays before Rhee. Of course Rhee is already being hit with charges with racism because she fired a Hispanic principal who just happened to be the principal of the school Rhee’s two young daughters are enrolled in.

However, Rhee has a plan to take on the union and that involves making Washington, DC area teachers the highest paid in the country if they give up their tenure:

Rhee’s toughest fight, by far, is coming up. She has proposed a new contract for the union that would undermine tenure, the teachers union holy of holies. The carrot is money. By tapping Mayor Fenty and private philanthropists, she is hoping to make D.C. teachers the best-paid in the country. Current teachers would actually have a choice. If they are willing to go on “probation” for a year—giving up their job security—and can successfully prove their talent, they can earn more than $100,000 a year and as much as $130,000, a huge salary for a teacher, after five years. If not, they still get a generous 28 percent raise over five years and keep their tenure. (All new teachers must sign up for the first option and go on probation for four years.) Rhee predicts that about half the teachers will choose to take their chances on accountability for higher pay, and that within five years the rest will follow, giving up tenure for the shot at merit pay hikes.  [Newsweek]

It isn’t just teachers she is throwing money at to reform but the students as well:

One of the most controversial programs Rhee has introduced is a joint venture between D.C. schools and Harvard that pays middle school students cash — up to $100 a month — for good behavior and attendance.

Rhee says such pilot programs have worked in other cities. She says the District’s students have far too many bad incentives on the streets, from hustling to drug dealing, and need something to keep them focused.

“We’re preparing them to understand that if you do the right thing, then good things will happen to you,” Rhee said.  [CNN]

It will be interesting to see how this all turns out but I at a minimum Rhee should be respected for her dedication to improving the education of the nation’s poorest children:

As she spoke, late in the day (but only in the middle of her workday), she was becoming uncharacteristically wound up. “We do not have a nation right now where every child has an equal chance in life, because poor black kids don’t have an equal shot in life, because they go to crappy schools, and the Democratic Party is not tackling this issue, which I think is one of the biggest problems that exist.” [Newsweek]

However, I think her point could be expanded to low-income kids do not have an equal shot at an education as kids who go to school in more affluent neighborhoods or private schools.  I hope her education reforms are successful and hopefully motivates whoever is in the White House next year to begin similar education reforms across America.

Note: I know I have a few teachers who read this blog and I would love to hear what you think about these education reforms being spearheaded by Michelle Rhee.

Syngman Rhee is most famously known in Korea as being the first President of the fledgling Republic of Korea and lead his nation through the disastrous Korean War.  Despite being the first president of the ROK Syngman Rhee actually led a life with many other notable achievements as well as plenty of controversy.

Syngman Rhee was born the son of a not to wealthy Yangban family in North Korea in 1875.  Rhee was a smart and dedicated student in his youth and developed a keen interest in the west when blindness in his eyes due to a small pox infection that was cured by prominent protestant missionary Horace Allen.  Rhee would later go on and become part of a coup attempt to dethrone a pro-Japanese installed government in Korea.  His part in the coup attempt would land him a six year jail term in 1897 that included horrible living conditions and many beatings.  It would be in prison that Rhee would convert to Christianity and his religion would be something that would follow him the rest of his life.  When released from jail he would move to the United States to study.

He would later be recruited by the Korean government in 1905 to lobby American President Theodore Roosevelt to advocate for Korean independence from the Japanese under the guise of the 1883 Jemulpo Agreement that stated that the United States would show “good offices” in regards to aiding Korea.  Rhee tried to exert that “good offices” was a defensive pact which it clearly was not.  Roosevelt politely dismissed Rhee and even commented that “he could not do for the Koreans what they were utterly unable to do for themselves”.  Later that year the Treaty of Portsmouth would be signed and Korea would officially become part of the Imperial Japanese Empire.

Rhee would stay in the United States during the Japanese colonization of Korea and attend college and graduate with a bachelor’s degree from George Washington, a master’s degree from Harvard, and finally a doctorate’s degree in Political Science from Princeton.  It is quite possible that Rhee was the most highly educate Korean of his time.  The President of Princeton at the time of Rhee’s attendance was a man by the name of Woodrow Wilson who took a liking to Rhee and would often invite him to dinner parties.  Through connections through both Wilson and the American Christian community Rhee had the ear of many important American political leaders as well as other influential leaders in the Chinese Nationalist movement.  .

32 year old Rhee after graduating from Princeton.

In 1910 Rhee would return to Korea but would eventually leave a little over a year later due to a crackdown on dissent by the occupying Japanese.  He left Korea and immigrated to Hawaii where he worked as the head of a Methodist school.  In 1912 Rhee would have high hopes that help for Korean independence would come when his old mentor Woodrow Wilson was elected as the President of the United States.  However, with the responsibilities that comes with being the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson did not want to be complicated with any hostilities with the Japanese over Korea, especially with the outbreak of World War I.

With the end of World War I and the scheduling of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 that would establish the League of Nations, Rhee saw his chance to advance the cause of Korean independence.  So before the conference Rhee would help form the Korean Provisional Government in Exile and was elected as the body’s first President.  Since the Japanese had chosen to ally with the allies during the war during the conference they were allowed to keep their colonial possessions just like the rest of the allied powers.  Rhee on the other hand could not even attend the conference because the US State Department would not authorize Rhee to receive a passport.  Rhee would go on later to be impeached for corruption and abuses of power by the Provisional Government in 1925, which like his religion was a trait that would follow him around the rest of his life.

After being impeached Rhee was widely discarded by all his prior political friends and lived a much quieter life in Hawaii.  In 1934 at the age of 60 he would go on to marry the Austrian born 34 year old Francisca Donner and they would adopt a son:

Rhee with his wife Francisca Donner seated next to him.

Rhee would continue to live in Hawaii and probably would have never been heard from again if it wasn’t for the over reach of the Imperial Japanese military by declaring war against the United States.  After the Japanese defeat in World War II General Douglas MacArthur asked Chinese strongman Chiang Kai-shek who could best lead Korea and he recommended Syngman Rhee.  Rhee at the age of 71 returned to Korea aboard General MacArthur’s personal plane and became the temporary President of Korea until being formerly elected the President of the Republic of Korea in 1948.

Rhee taking his 1948 oath of office.

In his early years as President of the ROK Rhee worked hard to suppress any political challengers to his rule in the guise of clamping down on communist sympathizers.  At the same time Rhee continued to advocate for the reunification of the nation by force if necessary.  Rhee had waited all this years and suffered many hardships to be the President of all of Korea not just half of it.  Realizing Rhee’s ambitions to reunite the peninsula by force if necessary caused the US military to not field the Korean military with weapons that would give them a military edge over the North Koreans because of the fear Rhee would launch a offensive campaign against the North.  The US had just come out a bloody World War II battle and was not about to fight a major war in Asia to reunite Korea.

Rhee re-establishes the Korean government after Seoul is recaptured by the Americans from the North Koreans during the Korean War.

Ironically The US military’s policies would actually help lead to the war they tried to prevent because not fielding the South Korean military with better weapons actually caused the North Koreans to have too much of a military edge over the South that they quickly took advantage of and invaded the South in 1950.  During the Korean War Rhee would become an annoyance to the UN forces because of his rhetoric advocating for renewed offensive operations to reclaim North Korean lands after the entry of the Chinese into the Korean War.  After the entry of the Chinese into the war the US was no longer interested in fighting a war to reunite the peninsula because it could lead to a wider war that could include the Russian entry into the war.  The US fought to keep strategic terrain and began cease fire negotiations with the Chinese.  Rhee would continuously work against any cease fire agreements that the United States was trying to sign with the Chinese to end the war.

In July 1953 the cease fire agreement was signed officially ending the Korean War but Syngman Rhee refused to sign it leaving the United States to sign it in the name of the United Nations forces instead.  In the post-war years Rhee would continue to build his power base and ended winning his 1956 re-election campaign solely because of the mysterious death of his main rival Shin Ik-hee.  Rhee autocratic style would begin to wear thin with the Korean public during his last years in office that featured much political upheaval and massive student demonstrations.  Rhee’s final undoing was in 1960 when he tried to tamper with the election results that led to such large demonstrations that he was forced to resign at the age of 86.

Crowds celebrate on a army tank the 1960 resignation of Syngman Rhee.

After resigning Rhee would go into self imposed exile in Hawaii where he would die there five years later at the age of 91.  He was later buried in the National Cemetery in Seoul.  Rhee was a true Korean nationalist that did much for the cause of Korean independence, but was constantly hampered by his own autocratic tendencies and corruption failures that would follow him around his entire life.  His corruption and autocratic nature would cause Rhee to be the wrong man to lead the nation in the post-Korean War years that needed someone of great leadership abilities to unite the nation.  Rhee’s post-Korean War rule saw much turmoil in Korea that ultimately led to the 1961 military coup by Army General Park Chung-hee, which opened a whole another chapter in Korean history.

It is because of Rhee’s flaws that he never was able to live up to his promise of being the father of an independent Korean nation, but he should still be respected for his long service to the cause of Korean independence.

Sammy Lee was born in Fresno, California in 1920 and during his childhood he always wanted to take up diving.  However, as a person of color Sammy was only allowed to use the pool once a week on Wednesdays.  Also his Korean born dad did not want Sammy to take up diving and instead wanted him to become a doctor.  Sammy made a deal with his dad that if he kept his grades up and worked towards becoming a doctor his dad would allow him to train as a diver.  Thus over the years Sammy had to walk a tightrope of studying hard for school and continuing his training to become a top diver. 

Sammy eventually took up competitive diving when he enrolled in Occidental College.  In 1942 at the age of 22 he won his first springboard diving championship and then retired from the sport to study medicine at the University of Southern California as he had promised his dad he would do.  However, with the outbreak of World War II Sammy would serve in the US Army medical corps from 1943-1945.  After the war Sammy returned to college and took up competitive diving again and in 1946 he once again won the springboard diving championship despite being away from the sport for nearly four years. 

Sammy Lee was still a US Army doctor when he qualified to compete in the 1948 Olympic Games.  At the games Sammy won a Gold Medal for platform diving and a bronze medal for springboard diving.  He was the first Asian-American to receive a Gold Medal at the Olympic Games.  In 1952 he returned to the Olympics and successfully defended his platform diving title by once again winning a Gold Medal.  He became the first diver ever to win back to back Gold Medals. 

In 1953 while serving in the Korean War Sammy Lee would go on to win the James E. Sullivan Award which is given to the top amateur athlete of the year.  Sammy would later go on to coach the Olympic diving team to include training a number of Olympic champions to include Greg Louganis.  Sammy would even go on to be elected into the Olympic Hall of Fame.

Despite all of Michelle Wie’s publicity, glamour, and hype she has a long ways to go before she ever matches Sammy Lee as the best Korean-American athlete ever.  The video below is an informative interview with this great champion:

As you can see by watching this video, besides being a great champion, Sammy Lee is also a great man that all Americans, not just Korean-Americans can be proud of.