Third anniversary of Won-Joon Yoon’s death to be observed July 4 | |
 Archival photo by Heather Hill 1999--Throughout the days following Yoon's murder, students and community members left tokens of respect and memory on the lawn of the Korean United Methodist Church, where Yoon was killed. | The IU Korean Student Association (IUKSA) and Korean residents of Bloomington have planned a memorial service marking the third anniversary of the death of Won-Joon Yoon, a 26-year-old Korean graduate student who was killed while entering a church on July 4, 1999.
Yoon was shot by Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, a white supremacist who had distributed racially and religiously degrading pamphlets in the community while an undergraduate in Bloomington the preceding academic year. Smith also killed Ricky Byrdsong, a former Northwestern University men's basketball coach, in Skokie, Ill., on July 3, 1999, and wounded nine others in the Illinois cities of Chicago, Skokie, Springfield, Decatur and Champaign-Urbana, before killing himself later on the evening of July 4. The service for Yoon will be Thursday, July 4, at11 a.m. at the Korean United Methodist Church, 1924 E. Third St., in Bloomington.
A monument will also be erected at his death site and donations for erecting the monument are being accepted through the IUKSA. Go to this Web site for additional information: Archival stories about the killing of Yoon may be read at the
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Publication date: June 21, 2002
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