Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, Kansas

This is a U.S. Federal Prison.

It held 28 Nisei soldiers from Fort McClellan in Alabama. In March, 1944, 106 Nisei soldiers there refused to undergo combat training in protest of the incarceration of their families in internment camps. The 28 who were court-martialed were sent here.

Some 63 draft resisters from Heart Mountain were convicted by a federal jury and thirty of the older ones were sent here while the rest went to McNeil Island Penitentiary. All were pardoned by President Truman in 1947.

Heart Mountain's Fair Play Committee leaders were convicted of advising others to resist the draft and the seven of them were sentenced to four years in Leavenworth. Their verdict was eventually overturned.



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