“Mother of June”

Gwangju mourned the death of a rather quiet but determined champion for democracy early last month: Bae Eun-sim; she was 82. Attending the funeral wake at the Chosun University Hospital funeral facility were President Moon Jae-in and other prominent political figures.

Bae was pushed into the spotlight of the democratization movement in 1987 when her son, Lee Han-yeol, a student activist, died from being hit with a teargas canister fired by riot police during a June rally on the Yonsei University campus. Lee’s death sparked the June Democratic Struggle against the strong-armed rule of Chun Doo-hwan, who had come to power through a 1979 military coup and was the man behind the ruthlessness of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising.

With the death of her son, Bae carried on with the country’s fight for democracy, earning her the moniker “Mother of June.” While serving as chair of the Korea Association of Bereaved Families for Democracy, Bae led a 422-day sit-in in front of the National Assembly in Seoul. Her efforts helped in enacting legislation looking into suspicious deaths of pro-democracy figures and the restoration of honor to persons involved in democratization movements.

In a 2009 KBS interview, Bae was quoted as saying, “I always think that I am not alone, that Han-yeol is with me.” Two years ago, she received from President Moon the Moran Medal, the nation’s second-highest Order of Civil Merit.

Bae was interred in Gwangju’s Mangwol-dong Cemetery, where her son also rests. May she rest in peace, as Korea now rests in relative peace and democracy, to which Bae Eun-sim and her son have made no small contribution.

Text by David Shaffer.