Internment Detainees Resist Draft
Constant Wonder
Irrigation Ditch to Olympic Gold
Episode: Irrigation Ditch to Olympic Gold
- May 17, 2021 6:00 pm
- 7:05 mins
In the Heart Mountain Internment camp during WWII, a high-school football team rose to victory over local public school teams. The winning team lifted the spirits of their incarcerated community. Then team members, when faced with a military draft from the US government, resisted—not because they didn't want to defend their country, but because the US refused to end the camps, even if the young men enlisted. Guest: Bradford Pearson, author of “The Eagles of Heart Mountain: A True Story of Football, Incarceration, and Resistance in World War II America”