It is very surprising to find similarities between the Burakumin of Japan and paekjong of Korea. Both groups were stigmatized minorities in traditional Japan and Korea respectively. They have been discriminated against in social, economic, and political spheres. In addition, both groups attempted to establish organizations for abolishing such social discriminations against them in Japan and Korea, respectively. The Suiheisha for the Burakumin was founded in 1922 in Japan, and in the following year, its counterpart for paekjong, the Hyongpyongsa, was founded in Korea.

It is interesting to compare the foundation and process of their activities in Japan and Korea in the early twentieth century. They shared emotions and friendship in the early stages. They also exchanged their delegates to each other and warm supports to the activities of their counterpart.

Nonetheless, they followed their trajectories quite differently after the end of the World War II. In Japan, the Burakumin have been suffering from constant discriminations against them. They continued to resist the unfair treatment and to accelerate their activities for liberating their fellows from agonies. In contrast, some descendents of members of the Hyongpyongsa were not successful to reorganize their fellows in 1950s, even though there were remaining traces to discriminate against them. Their background was no longer identified by others in everyday life in the breakdown of the conventional shinbun [social status and identity] system that classified all people into status groups with rigid hierarchy. There is little evidence to show social discriminations against paekjong in contemporary Korea.

We can presume several reasons why social discrimination against paekjong seems to disappear in contemporary Korea. First of all, we can find the reason in the destruction of the shinbun system. The shinbun system had been in disarray with sequences of historical events, especially in the twentieth century. Among them were the massive diaspora of people in the early 1940s of the last years of Japanese colonial rule, and in the early 1950s during the Korean War. And in the 1960s and the 1970s, the rapid industrialization and urbanization resulted in the dismantlement of traditional customs in local communities and the massive movement from rural areas to urban areas. As a consequence, it became almost impossible to recognize the shinbun backgrounds of people. In short, the shinbun system no longer exists in contemporary Korea. Accordingly, members of paekjong group could not have been identified for their background in everyday life.

In spite of the historical process, we cannot undermine the significant contributions of the Hyongpyongsa activities for abolishing social discriminations against paekjong. The main purposes of this paper are to find factors of the successful campaign by the Hyongpyongsa and to get some lessons from the history, especially through the role of the middle class to contribute for the development of the Hyongpyongsa activities.[1]

In Search of Human Rights for Paekjong

The Hyongpyongsa was established in 1923 and lasted until 1935 when it was transformed into an interest group along with the change of the title, Taedongsa. The main purposes and aims of the organization were originally to abolish social discriminations against paekjong and to seek fair treatment for them as members of Korean society.

We can find the close relations between the establishment of the organization and social and economic situations of paekjong. First of all, it was established for the purpose of the termination on suppression and social discrimination against them in various ways for centuries. Even though there was not clear reason why they had been in unfair situations for such long periods, it is indisputable that they had been regarded as being inferior to ordinary people in traditional Korean society and that they had been severely suppressed and discriminated against by ordinary people throughout their life from birth to death, even after.

For example, they were forced to select restricted range of characters excluding ones with noble meanings such as loyalty[忠] and filial piety[孝] for their names. It means that they were forcibly degraded as soon as they were born. They were also forbidden to live in the residential area of ordinary people, to wear ordinary people’s hats and clothes, and to construct their houses with tiles for roofing. In addition, they should behave to ordinary people, even to juniors, with extremely modest attitudes and with higher form of language. Humiliation and segregation extended even to their wedding, funeral services and place of burial. In their conversation and personal interactions, paekjong was inevitably disclosed their status background as being inferior to ordinary people. And they were forced to follow social customs that humiliated them. Otherwise, they were punished for their deviances by ordinary people in the basis of private rule of the village.

There are little evidences to show the origins and background of paekjong. However, it is sure that they had inherited their jobs from generations to generations in specific industries such as slaughtering and butchering of animals, crafting leather, tanning ox hides, and making wickerwork. As a consequence, they held a sort of monopoly in such industries. The inheritance of specified jobs remained until the 1920s, as shown in the Table 1.

Table 1. The Population of Paekjong and Their Occupations in 1926 

(source :   Chosen  Sotokufu  Keimu-Kyoku  [ Police  Affairs  Bureau , Korean  Government – General ] ,  Chosen  no  Chian  Jokyo  [ Public  Security  in  Korea ] ,  (1927) . 

But their occupations presumably contributed to mark them as menial outcasts in Buddhist Koryo and Confucian Choson societies. Their agony lasted for centuries, even up to the early twentieth century. Even though Choson government proclaimed to abolish social discriminations related to the shinbun in the late nineteenth century, the humiliating and discriminating customs against lower people did not easily disappear in everyday life. This situation undoubtedly fomented the outbreak of the Hyongpyong Movement in the 1920s.

The Hyongpyongsa, founded in Jinju in 1923, had successfully spread out its organizations and activities across the southern part of the Korean peninsula. Within several months, the number of local branches reached 80. There were its local branches in major towns and cities in the southern areas, especially in Kyongsang, Cholla, and Chungchong provinces. Along with geographical spread, the number of its local branches had steadily increased until the early 1930s, as shown in Table 2. Since then, the organizations had begun to decline in their activities.

Table 2. The Number of the Hyongpyongsa Branches: 1923 – 1935

(source :   The figure for 1923 comes from Chosen  Sotokufu  [Korean  Government – General ] ,  Chosen  no  Chunsu [Mass of Korea] 1926, p.183;  all other figures come form Chosen  Sotokufu  Keimu-Kyoku  [ Police  Affairs  Bureau , Korean  Government – General ] ,  Saikin ni okeru Chosen  no  Chian  Jokyo  [ The Present Security Situation in  Korea ] ,  (1933, 1935).

Its successful campaign did not show only in the number of local branches, but also in the varieties of programs and emergence of sub-groups. Especially the emergence of sub-groups contributed for the activation of the group. Among sub-groups were the Chongwidan (Righteous Defense Unit), a small militant unit, the Hyongpyong Youth League, and the Hyongpyong Student League. They were particularly active in the period of the rapid growth of the Hyongpyong Movement between 1924 and 1928.

The Chongwidan, founded in 1925, aimed to protect members and activities of the Hyongpyongsa against external attacks. Active young leaders of several local branches with higher education joined to organize the sub-group. Though small in number, they had enormous influence on the Hyongpyongsa with radical ideology. And they became to share a part of the leadership of the national headquarters. Even though it is not clear how long it endured and how successful it achieved its initial goals, their firm stances for the Hyongpyong Movement with militant methods contributed for protecting their fellows against external suppression on their activities and for re-assuring their fellows about the purpose of the association.

In contrast, the Hyongpyong Youth League, launched in 1924, became a unifying social network for young members of local branches across the country, especially in the southern part. It became the largest sub-group within the Hyongpyongsa, and proceeded to found regional organizations in some provinces. Apparently, their effective and varied campaigns such as unofficial schooling for Hyongpyongsa members proved attractive and encouraging to the rank and file members of the Hyongpyongsa.

Another major sub-group, the Hyongpyong Student League, was launched in 1925. The main components of the sub-group were members' children enrolled in schools. With warm support from the national headquarters and local branch members, it campaigned for the enlightenment of members and education of their children. In considering of the powerful barriers blocking paekjong from public schools, its foundation and activities could be evaluated as an important outcome of the Hyongpyong Movement.

These sub-groups were successful to launch nationwide organizations and receive endorsement and support from the national headquarters as well as local members. It is also worthy noting that such sub-groups contributed for diversifying the activities of the Hyongpyongsa as a whole and for recruiting young members to the national leadership group. These caused the dynamics of the leadership of the Hyongpyong Movement. With such process, the Hyongpyongsa also carried out their initial aims and goals in action, particularly focusing on protecting their members and activities against outer suppression and attacks, on promoting solidarity among their members, and on enlightenment of their members.

Thanks to their successful campaign, the Hyongpyongsa became one of the longest lasting social movement groups under Japanese colonial rule. And it was perceived one of the powerful organizations during the period in terms of the membership and regional coverage of their action. As a result, social movement activists accepted the Hyongpyongsa as one of the core members of social movement industries in the 1920s.

Doubtless, the activities of the Hyongpyongsa contributed for the transformation of the paekjong community. Their activities can be characterized into two types in nature. One is to seek the communitarian interests and purposes. We can find this in the activities to enlighten the members. They attempted to educate the rank and file members and their offspring through official and unofficial schools. For the purpose of enlightenment, they also published journals and organized various types of lecture tours to dispatch intellectual leaders to local branches in the country. The other examples of activities for the community can be found in their attempt to get back the economic interests in their inherited industries. In these activities, the Hyongpyong Movement can be classified into a sort of communitarian movement.

The other characteristics of their activities were to secure their human rights. For their initial purposes, they strongly resisted any discriminating and unfair customs and conventions against them. And they successfully demanded to delete their social background on the government record to register all people. They also attempted to stop the use of contemptuous calling, paekjong. Their resistance caused severe confrontations with offensive non-paekjong villagers. Their activities no doubt contributed for liberating paekjong from conventional bondage, for being equally treated with others, and ultimately for protecting their human rights. Therefore, the Hyongpyong Movement has been praised to be a cornerstone of human rights initiative in Korean history.

The Reasons of the Successful Campaign for the Hyongpyongsa

The successful campaign of the Hyongpyong Movement can be explained in various aspects. Doubtless, it is deeply associated with social changes in the internal and external environments of the paekjong community. I would like to find the reasons with four aspects. First of all, the spread of the egalitarian idea provided social backgrounds to trigger the foundation of the Hyongpyongsa. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while still being in painful suppression on and discriminations against them, the paekjong encountered the on-going breakdown of hierarchical shinbun system. As a result, they could gradually liberate themselves from conventional bondage. For instance, some paekjong moved out of their segregated residential areas to ones of ordinary people, which gave them chances to interact with liberal neighbors. They had also contacted with liberal and egalitarian ideas in the spread of indigenous religion, Tonghak (East Learing) and in the introduction of Western religion, Christianity. In the late nineteenth century, in particular, Tonghak and their revolts against Choson dynasty, though unsuccessful no doubt caused to reshuffle the rigid shinbun system. In addition, some paekjong had begun to attend Christian churches in some areas, including Seoul and Jinju, before the foundation of the Hyongpyongsa.

The outbreak of the March 1 Independence Movement in 1919 is another major event to spread out liberal ideas in every corner of the country. Soon after the nationwide massive protests, there were numerous social groups to launch their activities with diverse purposes across the country. Such groups were generally led by liberal and reformist activists at the national and local levels. Some of them had wealthy families backgrounds with higher education. Some were devoted themselves for their activities so that they could be called 'professional social movement activists.' These social groups continued to generate their influence for the purpose of reforming the whole society. The cluster of the social movement groups was conceived to consist of a sort of social movement sector. Thus, the wide spread of liberal and egalitarian ideas, along with the formation of social movement sector, provided the basis and background for the development of the Hyongpyong Movement.

Secondly, the growth of economic capacity contributed for the development of the Hyongpyong Movement. The paekjong, the major beneficiary of the Movement, were inevitably in touch with industrialization, though still embryonic. The industrialization brought about the expansion of urban areas and the reshuffle of the occupational structure in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. In the advent of capitalist society, along with industrialization, some paekjong sought to accumulate their wealth as merchants of leather products and shopkeepers of butcher in market areas. In contrast, most of them turned to be victims of the society in transition, losing their inherited occupations in slaughtering and leather industries in competition with non-paekjong capitalists.

The wealthy paekjong who obtained economic benefits in the commercializing were eager to educate their offspring in private or public schools, obviously for the purpose of ascending their status. However, they could not realize their aspirations in the concrete barrier of unfair conventions to discriminate against them. This mixed aspects of the transitions towards a modern society provoked them to launch their own organization for attempting the abolition of social discriminations and for guaranteeing human rights. Their economic power naturally turned to be the resources to mobilize and sustain the Hyongpyong Movement.

Thirdly, the strong solidarity of members contributed for the rapid growth of the Hyongpyongsa activities. The foundation of the association drew attention from members of paekjong community as well as liberal social activists throughout the country. Their precise proclamation of the goals and purposes was responded by the rank and file members of paekjong community with warm support. Their support became the substantial source to buttress the activities of the Hyongpyongsa. The Hyongpyongsa, in turn, organized their activities reflecting to common interests of their fellows and attempted to regain their economic privileges that they enjoyed in the monopoly of inherited industries. Therefore, the Hyongpyong Movement was carried out with strong moods of communitarian interests, mainly resulted from the solidarity of strong membership of the paekjong.

Their strong solidarity and shared emotion were originated in close contacts to each other for several centuries from generations to generations. They lived in certain boundaries of the residence that was separated from others. They were confined to do work in specific occupations. And they got married with their partner from paekjong group so that, in a broad sense, all members of the paekjong community belonged to a sort of clan with bloody relationship. It is no doubt that such strong community network through marriage, occupation and residential area was an asset in mobilizing resources for the movement. Moreover, they had their own organization in traditional society that controlled social matters on their industries. These human resources for action are presumed to contribute for the nationwide and rapid development of the Hyongpyong Movement.

Nonetheless, there are still some remaining questions how to mobilize the rank and file members for the activities. Therefore, I would like to point out that the leadership was the fourth and final factor to develop the Hyongpyong Movement. Even though the leadership was fluctuated in the process, the leaders played significant roles to launch and develop the Hyongpyong Movement. It is useful for us to find some lessons from the leadership.

The Leadership of the Hyongpyong Movement

As discussed in the previous section, we can find four main factors that contributed for the development of the Hyongpyong Movement with enormous success.  In particular, the leadership was the most important one out of the four main factors. The leadership played a key role to activate other factors. For example, the egalitarian ideas that spread out across the country, implicitly or explicitly, contributed to trigger the Hyongpyong Movement. However, unless leaders understood the ideas and disseminate it to the members of paekjong community, the ideas could not have been used to mobilize the Hyongpyong Movement. For this case, leaders being involved in the dissemination of the idea should have intellectual backgrounds with higher education. Without financial support, they could not have any education either at official or unofficial schools.

We can also find the crucial role of the leadership in mobilizing economic resources that determined the process of the Movement. Even though there appeared some of wealthy paekjong in the process of the industrialization and urbanization, there was no any clue for them to contribute for the development of the Movement. It was leaders that urged the wealthy paekjong to participate for the association and to donate their money for the activities.

It is clear that the third factor, the solidarity of members, was also closely connected with the matter of the leadership. It is the role of the leadership that made the ordinary members of the paekjong community powerful human resources to develop the Movement. They urged the rank and file members to join the activities of the Hyongpyongsa. They also organized and provided for the programs in responding with the demands from the average members. It was possible because leaders continued to understand the situation surrounding the rank and file members. It is a basic knowledge that the Movement could not develop without their support.

Thus, the leadership was in the core of the development of the Hyongpyong Movement. But it shows the national leadership of the Movement fluctuated in various aspects. Constituents of leadership had been changed in nature on stages and situations.

In the incipient stage, the Hyongpyong Movement was founded and led by non-paekjong social activists in cooperation with influential members of paekjong community. It is very interesting that the leadership of the newly founded organization consisted of people with different shinbun background. However, it is very understandable that non-paekjong activists joined the national leadership when we know their activities prior to the Hyongpyongsa. Some of them used to lead the March 1 Movement which forced them in jail. And some were working in local journalism with intellectual backgrounds and joining social activities ranging from labor and farmer associations to moderate social reform groups with diverse colors.[2]  

Such activists took a significant part in leading the Hyongpyong Movement and in drawing attention from non-paekjong members of the whole society. They contributed for bridging the Hyongpyongsa and other social movement groups at the national level as well as in local community. Sometimes they played a key role to make peace in the confrontations between members of the Hyongpyongsa and their opponents. And one of their contributions was to drive the Movement in pursuit of universal value such as enlightenment of people and human rights beyond shallow interests of the group.

Unlike the non-paekjong leaders, the components of paekjong leaders showed rather complexity in nature. Most of them came from wealthy families, at least in the incipient stage. For example, leaders who gathered together at the ceremony for its foundation in Jinju were mostly influential leaders from the paekjong community. They succeeded in their hereditary industries as merchants of leathers and butchers in market places. Their economic success allowed them to move out of the inherited village and to be eager to educate their children. Such wealthy paekjong leaders were no doubt main providers of financial source of the Hyongpyongsa activities.[3] They were not presumed only to pay attention on personal interests, but also on finding good ways to raise social status of their community fellows, because they still suffered from social prejudice and discrimination at many levels. Therefore, their stance for the Movement seemed to be rather moderate to confine their activities into the improvement of their social status.

In contrast, there was some different type of paekjong leaders who had higher education. Presumably due to intellectual background, they had a little different stance from other leaders about the goal and strategy of their activities. They were inclined to socialist ideas which began to spread out in Korea at that time. Even though they shared the general goals of the association with others, therefore, they attempted to struggle to re-gain the economic privilege of their inherited industries.[4] In that sense, their stance was in rather more progressive than the moderate wealthy paekjong. They realized their deprivation of inherited privilege in hereditary industries and seemed to have their sense of grievance and consciousness of human rights. Relatively, the number of leaders in this type was obviously small, but their influential should be enormous among their community, especially in the latter stage. They played a key role to lead the rank and file members of the paekjong community and to bridge the Hyongpyonsa and other social groups. It reflected the differentiation of the paekjong community into 'the have' and 'the have-nots' through industrialization and urbanization. The progressive leaders seemed to pay more attention on their lower fellows than the wealthy leaders.

The different stance among leaders may naturally bring about tension and, furthermore, cause factional dispute on various issues within their organization. Such diversity in leadership eventually caused friction among association members. It happened in the Hyongpyongsa. The factional differences of the leadership in the Hyongpyongsa in the early stage can be summarized in Table 3 as below.

Table 3. The Differences between the Two Factions in the Early Stage

This factional dispute reflected the situation to which the Hyongpyongsa faced. It revealed that there were diverse opinions and alternatives for their activities. We can also understand that there are some positive aspects of factional dispute, surely the Hyongpyong Movement. For example, the heterogeneous background of the leader prevented the association from seeking only shallow group interests of paekjong. They could go beyond and struggle to implement universal values such as human rights and social justice. It can be one of main factors to determine unique characteristics of the Hyongpyong Movement as human rights initiative.

It is also worth noting that the rank and file members contributed for urging the compromise of factional leaders in demands to keep working for their initial goals. It means that leaders could not ignore the demands from below and that the rank and file members continued to present their opinions and desires to their leaders. With their support, the leaders designed the Movement for realizing their initial aims and purposes. Such cooperation between leaders and members contributed for the development of the Movement.

There were, of course, continuous fluctuations among the leadership of the national headquarters. They were recruited from the rank and file members at the local and national levels. The Movement could make progress with the emergence of new leading groups. In particular, in the mid 1920s, new leaders were massively recruited from sub-groups such as the militant Chongwidan (Righteous Defense Unit), the youth associations, and the student associations. They were mostly educated in private or public schools. That is, they were intellectuals with middle class background. Their joint to the national leadership brought about the dynamic of the national leadership that contributed for accelerating the activities in the national level as well as at the local level. They played a key role to initiate the Movement for its political stances against Japanese colonial rule and to keep favorable relationship with other social groups. Some of them attempted to organize a nationalist group for the purpose of leading their fellow into the independence movement of the country. And some tried to launch a trade union for slaughterers and butchers, obviously in the influence of socialism. These diverse trends within the Movement resulted in the revitalization of the Movement in the late 1920s. If there were not suppression on their activities by Japanese colonial power, the Hyongpyong Movement could be recorded, either as a substantial leading force for the independence movement, or as a forerunner of trade union movement in Korea. Unfortunately, Japanese colonial authorities blocked their movement by force in the early 1930s. Young leaders, mostly inclined to socialism, were forced to leave the Hyongpyongsa activities. Because Japanese colonial authorities attempted to tighten a grip of social movement groups in Korea before they started the Sino-Japanese War in the early 1930s.

We need to pay attention that, regardless of Japanese intervention, the emergence of the younger leaders caused the friction of the national headquarters. The younger leaders were in tension with older ones in various points. The younger leaders were more inclined to cooperate with outer social movements than older ones who obviously wanted to retain their own identity and industries. Thus, these differences among the leadership represented the dynamics of the Hyongpyong Movement in the late 1920s and the early 1930s. In short, the nature and change in the leadership had closely associated with the fluctuation of the movement itself.

Conclusion and the Legacy of the Hyongpyong Movement

The Hyongpyong Movement has been generally evaluated as a milestone of human rights initiative in Korea. It attempted to implement human rights for the stigmatized paekjong in the basis of communitarian value.  Their goal and aims can be praised universal pursuit for human being as a whole, even in contemporary era. If we find some lessons from the Hyongpyong Movement in terms of strategy, I would like to point out that people concerned with the issue of social discriminations have to play a key role to lead and mobilize their activities and, furthermore, that leaders, mainly from middle class with higher education, should be in the center of the activities to bridge all components surrounding the association.

As mentioned in the beginning, there are little traces of paekjong in contemporary Korea. It does not mean that all discriminations against paekjong would have disappeared in social life in Korea. It is quite surprising that some people still keep prejudices on paekjong in mind. Nonetheless, it hardly finds any social discrimination against paekjong in everyday life. In reality, it is impossible to disclose their existence or shinbun background. Nobody with paekjong background seems to want to be exposed his/her personal background by others.

However, there are some legacies of the Hyongpyong Movement. In Jinju where the Hyongpyongsa was founded, some citizens organized a commemoration association and campaigned to implement the spirit of the Hyongpyong Movement, that is, the abolition of social discrimination and the advocacy of human rights. Because there are numerous types of socially deprived minority groups such as the disabled, the immigrant workers and families, the elderly, and children. Among their campaigns were the establishment of ‘human rights city’ where all the people enjoy their dignity and equal treatment, and the introduction of ‘human rights ordinance’ in the local community by which all the people can be guaranteed their human rights in everyday life. Again, we make sure that leaders mostly from the middle class with higher education play key roles to develop this campaign.