Considered the godfather of Asian American journalism, K.W. (Kyung Won) Lee was a pioneering Korean American journalist whose illustrious career profoundly shaped Korean American community consciousness, journalism, and activism.

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Born in 1928 in Kaesong, Korea, K.W.’s activism began during the student democratization movement while he was a student at Korea University in Seoul, South Korea. In 1950, he immigrated to the United States on a student visa and studied journalism at West Virginia University, later receiving a master’s degree from the University of Illinois in 1955. He went on to become one of the first Asian immigrant journalists hired by mainstream daily newspapers, reporting for the Kingsport Times-News in Tennessee and the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia. As an investigative reporter, K.W. covered a wide range of human-interest stories focused on social justice, including black lung disease among coal miners in the Appalachian Mountains and the civil rights movement in the Jim Crow South.

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While at the Sacramento Union during the 1970s, K.W. initiated a series of investigative articles on Chol Soo Lee, a Korean immigrant who was racially profiled and wrongfully convicted in 1973 of a murder involving Chinese gangs in San Francisco’s Chinatown. His reporting brought national and international attention to a man who had already spent years in prison and faced the death penalty, helping spark a grassroots mobilization of the Korean American and broader Asian American community for a retrial.

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Along with other community leaders and activists, K.W. played a key role in the Free Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee, one of the earliest pan-Asian American movements for justice. Over the course of five years leading to Chol Soo Lee’s retrial and subsequent acquittal, K.W. produced more than 100 articles shedding light on Lee’s plight and the inconsistencies surrounding his original trial. Known as the Chol Soo Lee papers, these materials were donated by K.W. and archived at UC Davis.

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For K.W., the Chol Soo Lee movement demonstrated the lack of political voice and community organization among Korean Americans, many of whom were recent immigrants at the time. In response, K.W. founded Koreatown Weekly in 1979, the first national English-language Korean American publication, to help provide that voice. Along with partners Randy Hagihara and Steve Chanecka, the effort became what K.W. referred to as “I-5 Journalism,” as the trio shuttled between Sacramento and Los Angeles to produce and distribute the paper. Ahead of its time, Koreatown Weekly ultimately ceased publication in 1984 due to financial constraints.

In 1990, K.W. established the English Edition of the Korea Times in Los Angeles. During this crucial period in Korean American history, he recognized the escalating tensions between African American customers and Korean American merchants in inner-city neighborhoods that had long suffered from neglect and disinvestment.

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When Los Angeles erupted in violence on April 29, 1992, K.W.’s concerns became a devastating reality. As the Korean American community experienced what many viewed as a second victimization through insensitive or incomplete portrayals in mainstream media, ethnic publications such as the Korea Times English Edition became even more important in providing coverage of the community and serving as a voice to the broader public.

At the time, K.W. was hospitalized following complications from Hepatitis B and a liver transplant. From his hospital bed, he watched the events of Sa-I-Gu (“4-2-9” in Korean) unfold and supervised his reporters’ coverage of what he would later describe as the Korean American community’s wake-up call to consciousness.

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Throughout his career, K.W. remained a respected veteran journalist and advocate for greater representation in the media. He served on the editorial board of ColorLines magazine and was the founding president of the Korean American Journalists Association.

His many awards and distinctions included the Asian American Journalists Association’s first Lifetime Achievement Award, the John Anson Ford Award from the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission in the aftermath of Sa-I-Gu, and the Freedom Forum’s Free Spirit Award in 1994, for which he was the first Asian American recipient. In 1997, he was inducted into the Newseum’s Journalism History Gallery.

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In 2000, he was profiled in Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists: The Newseum’s Most Intriguing Newspeople under the category of “barrier breakers,” alongside figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, founder of The Crisis and co-founder of the NAACP; Alice Stone Blackwell, who covered the women’s suffrage movement; and Randy Shilts, one of the first openly gay reporters to cover the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco.

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Even in semi-retirement, K.W. remained active as a spokesperson and mentor within the Korean American community. At universities including UCLA and UC Davis, he lectured on investigative journalism in communities of color, inspiring new generations of Asian American journalists committed to social justice and fair representation. In his continuing efforts to engage the second generation and empower the community, K.W. remained a presence at leadership conventions, community gatherings, and speaking engagements.

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K.W. also devoted himself to documenting the Korean American experience and preserving its history. Along with Dr. Luke and Grace Kim, he worked on Lonesome Journey: The Korean American Century – A Korean Oral History, a collection of oral histories from the earliest waves of Korean immigrants. He also co-edited with Julie Ha Witnessing a Defining Moment for Korean American Diaspora: Children of Sa-I-Gu Remember, a multiracial anthology reflecting on the Los Angeles unrest through the memories of those who experienced it as children.

K.W. Lee passed away on March 8, 2025, at the age of 96. His groundbreaking journalism, lifelong pursuit of justice, and commitment to giving voice to the Korean American and Asian American communities left an enduring legacy. Through his reporting, mentorship, and community leadership, he helped pave the way for generations of journalists and activists who continue the work to which he devoted his life.