Civil rights & activism
Lily Chin
1920–2002 · civil rights activist
Chinese immigrant mother of Vincent Chin who, after his 1982 killing, became the moral voice of the national campaign for justice that launched the Asian American civil rights movement.
- Born
Heping, China- Died
Farmington Hills, Michigan
aged 81- Birth name
- Lily Yee
- Detroit years
- 1948–1987, 2001–2002
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Lily Yee was born in 1920 into a merchant family in southern China and came to the United States in 1948 after marrying David Chin. Unable to have children after a miscarriage, the couple adopted Vincent from a Chinese orphanage in 1961 and raised him in Highland Park and Oak Park. After her son was beaten to death in June 1982 and his killers received only probation and a fine, the soft-spoken mother became the face of the protest. She spoke at rallies across the country, and with American Citizens for Justice she pressed for the federal civil rights prosecution that followed, the first of its kind for an Asian American. When the case ended in acquittal on retrial and the killers never paid the civil judgment in full, she left for China in 1987. Diagnosed with cancer, she returned to Michigan in 2001 for treatment and died in Farmington Hills in 2002. She is buried in Detroit beside her husband and son.
Highlights
- Emigrated to the United States in 1948
- Led the national campaign for justice for Vincent Chin
- Pushed for the first federal civil rights trial for an Asian American victim
- Established a scholarship in her son's memory through American Citizens for Justice
- Buried in Detroit beside her husband and son
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Buried here · 2002
Forest Lawn Cemetery (Detroit)
Detroit cemetery where Lily Chin is buried with her husband and son.