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One of the new portraits of Fred Korematsu, circa 1940. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

When Fred Korematsu’s family was forced to leave their home for the Japanese internment camps in 1942, his father hid their family photographs in the rafters of their East Oakland flower nursery. Miraculously, the photographs were still buried in the rafters when the Korematsus returned from the camps three years later. Most families returned to nothing.

Two of these photographs have now made the journey from the flower nursery to the National Portrait Gallery’s “Struggle for Justice” gallery; one shows the Korematsu family in the nursery and the other is a portrait of Fred Korematsu, circa 1940.

“A lot of people ended up burning most of their photographs and their possessions,” says his daughter Karen Korematsu. “They didn’t think they had anything to come back to, especially if they didn’t own land.”

Two of these photographs have now made the journey from the flower nursery to the National Portrait Gallery’s “Struggle for Justice” gallery; one shows the Korematsu family in the nursery and the other is a portrait of Fred Korematsu, circa 1940.

Just a few years later, the serene-looking 20-year-old in the portrait had transformed into a different man. After refusing to obey the executive order that led to the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, Korematsu was arrested and sent to prison. He fought his conviction all the way up to the Supreme Court, who ruled that the internment of the Japanese Americans was a “military necessity.” Korematsu spent more than two years in internment camps in California and Utah and was shunned as a troublemaker by the Japanese American community for many years after the war ended.

Fred Korematsu and family in their flower nursery in Oakland, CA. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

But when it was discovered in 1983 that the Solicitor General had suppressed evidence that undermined this “military necessity,” Korematsu’s case was reopened and his arrest was voided by a district court in San Francisco. In 1998, he received the Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton.

“He believed for almost forty years that we have the ability in this country to come to justice if we’re given the opportunity,” Karen says. “And he never gave up hope. Never.”

Korematsu, who died in 2005 at age 86, is the first Asian American to be commemorated in the civil rights exhibition. Even after his case was overturned, Korematsu lobbied for a formal apology from Congress and reparations to every Japanese American family that had been incarcerated. After that aim was achieved, he joined the fight for the rights of Muslim inmates in Guantanamo Bay, drawing parallels between the Japanese and Arab American experiences.

Karen Korematsu has followed in her father’s footsteps, telling his story to remind younger generations not to repeat history.

“When I cross the country talking about the Japanese American internment, a lot of people still don’t know about this part of history,” she says. “Now I can say, go to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, learn about our history and share it.”

As part of the Google Art Project, you can now virtually wander the halls of the American Art Museum and see remarkably detailed reproductions of hundreds of works

Have you ever wanted to wander the halls of the Portrait Gallery or Smithsonian American Art Museum—or see some of their works, such as Andrew Wyeth’s ‘Dodges Ridge,’ in exquisite detail—but can’t make it to DC at the drop of a hat? Now, thanks to the museums’ collaboration with the Google Art Project, you’ll have the opportunity to virtually experience all they have to offer from the comfort of your own home.

On Tuesday, as part of a major expansion of the project, the museums officially became participants, joining 150 other museums and institutions from around the world. As part of the collaboration, Google has created ultra high-resolution scans of 149 of the Art Museum’s pieces and 192 of the Portrait Gallery’s are now freely available for anyone to see online. For some museums, Google has selected a signature image to present at a size over 1 billion pixels (1 gigapixel), allowing viewers to examine the paintings down to remarkably minute details. By comparison, a typical digital camera produces photographs around 10 megapixels in size, or 1000 times smaller than a gigapixel.

Additionally, Google has used its Street View technology to provide remote viewers the chance to virtually tour the halls and galleries of the museums. The company’s special panoramic camera was brought in this past December to capture the interiors, and users can navigate it much as they might tour the streets of the city outside using Street View.

A panoramic camera is used to capture the museum's Kogod Courtyard. Photo courtesy of the American Art Museum

The project was started in February 2011 by Google, and now encompasses more than 32,000 works in total, including paintings, sculptures and drawings. The Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York also became an official participant today, with more than 1500 pieces represented online. The Smithsonian Institution’s involvement started last year, when more than 200 works from the Freer Gallery were captured and made available as part of the first phase of the project. At the time, Julian Raby, the Freer and Sackler Gallery’s director, commended the level of detail made available in the online reproductions and felt the project would only increase interest in the museum’s offerings.

“The gigapixel allows you to see elements that you would really never ever see, certainly in traditional means of reproduction. You might see the crackle in the oil of a painting, you can sense the brushstroke in the artist’s hand and energy, you can see narrative details you would never see otherwise,” he said. “The traditional thing has been to say that any form of surrogate photograph, video, film will mean that people won’t come to the museums; actually, the experience is quite the opposite. In this particular case, I think it will create a sense of fascination that will engage completely new audiences.”

Check out the project to tour museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery in London in addition to the three four Smithsonian museums that have joined on. You can wander the halls, select your favorite pieces, and build your own virtual gallery that brings together works from around the world. Google encourages art students and teachers to use the content as educational material, and plans to continue expanding the project in future years to make as much art as possible available to anyone, anywhere—so long as they have access to a computer.

Shake off winter with a scavenger hunt in the Smithsonian Gardens.

Tuesday, April 3 Spring Break at the National Portrait Gallery

Need to occupy a bored child on spring break? Take the family to the National Portrait Gallery for storytelling and arts and crafts in a special program through April 6. Drop in for a Portrait Story or pick up a Portrait Discovery Kit to learn about famous Americans using the museum’s selection of self-guided games and activities. Free. 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Education Center, National Portrait Gallery.

Wednesday, April 4 Let’s Move! with Smithsonian Gardens

Winter couch potatoes, it’s time to shake off the doldrums and get moving into spring! As part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens” campaign, Smithsonian Gardens has set up a scavenger hunt that lets kids and adults exercise body and mind at the same time. Explore nine Smithsonian gardens through clues and trivia. Don’t forget to bring a pedometer to count your steps. Free. Pick up a brochure at most museum information desks. Smithsonian Gardens.

Thursday, April 5 Baseball and the Presidency

Which president was a professional baseball player? Baseball enthusiast and historian Mel Marmer has the answer and more in this discussion of how our nation’s leaders have enjoyed our national pastime throughout history. What better way to celebrate the start of baseball season? Free. 12:00 p.m. American Art Museum.

Young musicians from the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont come to the Freer Gallery this week. Image courtesy of Marlboro Music Festival's Facebook page.

Tuesday, March 27 ‘80s Night

Feeling nostalgic for the decade of Lycra and Madonna? Test your memory at the National Portrait Gallery’s pop quiz happy hour. Trivia is based on the NPG’s portraits of 80s icons in music, sports and news. Parachute pants optional. Free. 6:30 p.m. Kogod Courtyard, National Portrait Gallery.

Wednesday, March 28 Musicians from Marlboro II

Since its establishment in 1951, the Marlboro Chamber Music Festival has become internationally acclaimed for its immersive training of the brightest young talents of each generation. Now, several of those talents—violinists David Bowlin and Robin Scott, violists Kyle Armbrust and Emily Deans, cellist Peter Stumpf, clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois, and pianist Gabriele Carcano—leave the foothills of Vermont to perform Haydn’s String Quartet, op. 54, no. 1; Beethoven’s String Quintet, op. 29; and Brahms’ Clarinet Trio, op. 114. Come early for a pre-concert tour of Japanese art. Free tickets required. 7:30 p.m. Meyer Auditorium, Freer and Sackler Galleries.

Thursday, March 29 American Painting Techniques

What gives a painting that early American style? Art conservators Lance Mayer and Gay Myers explain certain techniques and materials used by early American painters. Their book, American Painters on Technique: The Colonial Period to 1860, is the first comprehensive study of this topic. Discover the innovations of these pioneering artists through first-person descriptions of American painters at work, letters, shopkeepers’ bills and more. Free. 7:00 p.m. McEvoy Auditorium, American Art Museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Amelia Earhart was a pioneer in women's aviation. Her disappearance during her attempt to fly around the world has perplexed America for nearly 75 years. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

The distance from New Guinea and Howland Island is 2,556 miles. There are no landmarks. There is nothing but water and sky.

On July 2, 1937, somewhere between these two locations, Amelia Earhart and navigator, Fred Noonan, were crammed together in the twin-engined, Lockheed “Electra,” in mid-attempt to become the first to fly around the world at the equator.

At about 17:00 hours, they radioed their position: somewhere over the Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. They were low on fuel; communication with the U.S. Coastguard was not planned properly. Three hours later, Earhart radioed again. It was the last anyone ever heard from her.

Fast-forward nearly 75 years and Earhart’s name is still making headlines. Today, U.S. government officials met scientists and historians from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), to discuss the investigation of an alternative scenario—one that suggests Earhart may have survived as a castaway.

The new search is backed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and funded by the Discovery Channel and is planned to coincide with the 75th anniversary of her disappearance. Scientists will use high-tech underwater vehicles to search for remains of Earhart and her plane near the remote island of Nikumaroro; a location researchers say is close to where Earhart’s plane went down.

And while new interest in Amelia Earhart’s disappearance has resurfaced as of late, Dorothy Cochrane, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum says “Lady Lindy’s” legacy has always held a place in the Smithsonian Institution.

“Everybody has a theory, some more serious than others, but it’s still the greatest mystery of the 20th century,” she says, “and looks like it’s heading into the 21st century.”

In fact, there are several artifacts from Earhart on permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum and at the Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center. And this June, “One Life: Amelia Earhart,” a new exhibit will open at the National Portrait Gallery.

“People come [to the National Air and Space Museum] and the first thing they see is her bright, red airplane,” Cochrane says. “And they can say, ‘That’s Amelia Earhart’s airplane. Inside that machine is where she became the first woman to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean.’”

The Smithsonian Institution is home to countless artifacts from Earhart’s life: her flying leather jacket—the quintessential part of a pilot’s outfit, some of the books she wrote after she completed her flights, a radio she used in her first voyage over the Pacific.

The Udvar Hazy Center goes further—housing a flight-suit of hers, a menu from one of the various dinners she attended after completing a mission—even a pair of scissors used to cut her hair. Cochrane says by displaying these items and telling Earhart’s story the Smithsonian Institution has kept her alive.

“These are things that Amelia Earhart touched—she tuned this radio when she was flying from Hawaii to California,” Cochrane says. “These are tangible pieces of history that relate to this marvelous woman and what she did for aviation.”

The new exhibit at the Portrait Gallery delves into the life of “Lady Lindy” beyond aviation, providing examples of her work as a champion for women’s rights. In this one-room display, her biography is told through a series of portraits and a small collection of items—her pilot’s license, the first earned by a woman, a leather flying helmet and smelling salts.

Earhart founded a pilot program for women called, the Ninety-Nines, (to represent the 99 women who were its first members) and served as a faculty member at Purdue as a women’s career counselor and an adviser in aeronautics. She also served as the aviation editor for Cosmopolitan and encouraged other women to learn to fly urging mothers to allow their daughters to take lessons—a radical suggestion for a woman growing up in the 1920s and 1930s.

“She’s really the epitome of the modern woman of that era, making up her own career and her own mind. That’s what we try to portray here,” Cochrane says. “If her plane were found, it wouldn’t change our story, but it certainly would bring closure to hers.”

“One Life: Amelia Earhart” will be at the Portrait Gallery, June 29, 2012 through May 27, 2013.

Update: Amelia Earhart was not the first women to earn a pilot’s license. That distinction goes to Raymonde de Laroche of France, who received her license in 1910.