Did you know? - Born in Nebraska and raised in Kansas, Loren Miller attended the University of Kansas and Howard University; while at Howard, he won an Amy Spingarn literature prize from the NAACP for his essay "College." Miller then attended Washburn College of Law in Topeka, Kansas. After graduation, he settled in Los Angeles. There he divided his time between writing, journalism, and legal work. Miller became a regular contributor to the local African American weekly California Eagle. Aiding Japanese Americans In the years during and after World War II, Loren Miller established himself as a stalwart defender of Japanese Americans, both in print and before the courts. His first major contact with Japanese Americans came through the 1943 federal court case Regan v. King , in which the Native Sons of the Golden West sued to strip Americans of Japanese ancestry of suffrage rights. Miller signed the American Civil Liberties Union 's friend of the court brief defending the rights of the Nisei. In the years following the war, Miller served as counsel on People v. Oyama , the JACL challenge to California's Alien Land Act . The case resulted in the notable 1948 Supreme Court case Oyama v. California , which froze all enforcement of alien land laws. Miller also served as counsel in the case of Takahashi v. California Fish and Game Commission , which challenged California's denial of fishing licenses to Issei as "aliens ineligible to citizenship." Meanwhile, Miller joined Japanese American Citizens League counsel A.L. Wirin in bringing Amer v. Superior Court and Yin Kim v. Superior Court , two California court cases that challenged restrictive covenants against Asian Americans (with, respectively, a Chinese-American and Korean-American plaintiff). Miller's most direct contribution to civil rights for Japanese Americans came in January 1951, when he again joined Wirin in arguing the California Supreme Court case Masaoka v. California . The Court's 1952 decision led to the final demise of the Alien land laws. Although he initially agreed to serve on the Masaoka case without fee, Miller was ultimately offered an honorarium by a Joint Conference on the Alien land Law.