Who they were
A student at Ewha Haktang in Seoul, she became the teenage heroine of the March First Movement of 1919.
What they did
After joining the initial demonstrations of March 1919, she carried the movement home to Cheonan, helping organize the protest at the Aunae marketplace on April 1, 1919. Colonial gendarmes fired on the crowd; her parents were among those killed. Arrested and imprisoned at Seodaemun Prison, she continued protesting from her cell, including on the movement’s first anniversary. She died in prison in September 1920, aged 17, from the effects of torture and maltreatment, as records document.
Legacy
Posthumously decorated by the Republic of Korea, with her honors most recently elevated in 2019, she is popularly called “Korea’s Joan of Arc.” She remains the enduring face of the independence movement’s sacrifice; her cell and Seodaemun Prison are preserved as a memorial site.