A political activist credited with playing a key role into launching a federal investigation into the incarceration of Japanese Americans in WWII has died at the age of 71.
The Capitol Weekly reports Wayne Kimio Horiuchi died of acute liver failure January 23.
Active in both the Democratic and Republican parties during his lifetime, Horiuchi is described as instrumental in the establishment of a presidential commission to look into the opening of incarceration camps to imprison mostly Japanese Americans because of their race.
The commission lead President Gerald Ford to rescind the executive order which made the barbed-wire camps possible.
At the age of 18, Horiuchi was featured as a progressive youth voting bloc activist in direct contrast to his high school class mate, Karl Rove.
In 2008, he adopted his three grandchildren, rescuing them from Foster Care.
In the later years of his life, he switched from a progressive Democrat in Utah to a conservative Republican in California. He served as an alternate delegate for Donald Trump during the GOP Convention, according to the Sacramento Bee.
He is survived by his wife, Catherine, grandchildren and two brothers.
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