Independence activist to become honorary Yonsei graduate

Ahn Chang-ho, a late independence activist, will be honored with a posthumous certificate of graduation from Yonsei University.

The award comes 118 years after he entered the forerunner of Yonsei.

The school will award Ahn with a certificate of honorary graduation in a ceremony at Yonsei-Samsung Library on the Sinchon campus in Seoul on Nov. 8, a day before his birthday. His grandson, Philip Cuddy, 58, is scheduled to attend the event.

Yonsei will also hold a commemorative exhibition for Ahn in a museum in the Centennial Hall from Nov. 8 to Jan. 4, 2014. This year marks his 135th birthday.

The museum will display about 100 items such as photos, letters or court rulings regarding Ahn and his fellow independence activists who were Yonsei alumni.

Among the pieces to be displayed will be a large national flag known to have been used by Ahn in the United States and made by his wife Lee Hye-ryon. His grandson is scheduled to bring it from the U.S. for display for the first three days. Ahn and his wife were the first married couple to come to mainland America from Korea.

Ahn, usually called Dosan or Dosan Ahn Chang-ho along with his penname, was born in Pyeongan Province in Nov. 9, 1878 and entered Gusae Hakdang (Save the World School), a missionary-sponsored school run by Horace G. Underwood and Rev. F. S. Miller, in 1895. He graduated from the school in 1896.

He is known to have decided to attend the school after being told by Underwood one day when he passed Chungdong Methodist Church in Seoul that it would teach and provide accommodations and meals free of charge to anyone who wanted to learn.

Gusae Hakdang was a school for orphans, established in May 1886 by Underwood and other missionaries who worked at Jejungwon, a hospital, which later became Severance Hospital.

He died of liver cirrhosis in 1938 at the age of 59 after spending his later years in and out of prison several times for activities related to the independence struggle.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)