María Kim

In 1919, shortly before graduating from Tokyo Women’s Academy, Kim actively participated with others, like Hwang Aedeok, in the independence movement that followed the promulgation of the February 8 Declaration of Independence, a statement drafted by Korean foreign exchange students in Japan. Kim was one of many students who gathered outside of the Korean YMCA in Tokyo, Japan, and demonstrated against the Japanese murder of King Kojong and the annexation of Korea. She was arrested by Japanese police and tortured for 8 hours before being released.

When Kim left Tokyo after graduation she returned to Korea. She hid a copy of the February 8 Independence Declaration and brought it with her. This February Independence Declaration inspired the Korean Declaration of Independence. Both declarations also are similar because they were made for the same international audience and were anchored by the same concept of self-determination.^[4]

When the March 1st Movement broke out later the same year, Kim participated in anti-Japanese protest. Leading up to the March 1st protest, she organized female students and teachers and mobilized their participation.^[5] For her involvement, she was subsequently arrested and detained. During this period, she was subjected to torture, and she suffered health problems throughout her life as a result.

After being released from prison in August 1919, she united various women’s groups together to create the Korean Patriotic Women’s Association. She was elected president and under her leadership, the groups went from raising funds for male leaders to working to doing their own independence work.^[3] They published booklets containing pictures of the independence movement and distributed them to other nations. They collected facts and information on the happenings of the independence movement. Additionally, women of the group volunteered, taught, and were nurses, further adding to society.^[6] One of the Association’s members betrayed them and reported the group to Japan. More than 1000 women were arrested, including Kim.

Maria Kim was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for her involvement in the Korean Patriotic Women’s Association. While in prison she led prayer meetings so powerful that reportedly, “the sound of praise echoed in the prison”.^[3] Because her permanent lesions from torture she was granted medical leave, and with the help of American missionaries escaped to Shanghai. In Shanghai, she became the representative of Hwanghae province and enrolled in Nanjing’s Jinling College.

In 1923, she left Shanghai and traveled to the United States. She studied at Park College and the University of Chicago as a foreign exchange student, earning a master's degree. While there, she spoke before international relations forum of the American Association of University Women about Korean independence.^[7] She then and left for New York to study theology. In New York, she helped establish the Keunhwahoe, a patriotic Korean association for women, along with fellow exchange students Bak In-deok, Hwang Ae-deok, among others. She also spoke at Plymouth Church and the talk was titled “What Christianity Means to Me-A Korean.”^[8]

"The Korean Commission here has received a report from Dr. Frank W. Schofield, a Canadian medical missionary in Korea, who is home on a furlough, which reads: Maria Kim (a young girl student and graduate of the Presbyterian Mission School in Seoul, who had been arrested for the second time because of her connection with the independence movement) has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment at hard labor. She has been very seriously ill for some time as a result of the treatment she had received in prison and was (at the time of writing) undergoing an operation before recommencing her prison life. (It is doubtful whether she will live.)"^[9]

“Maria Kimm [ sic ] , una joven de veinticinco años a quien conozco desde niña, está ahora encerrada en la prisión interior. Es una belleza oriental, de ojos oscuros y pestañas soñadoras, como las que solo se ven en los rincones más recónditos de Asia. Lleva algunos años viviendo en Japón y habla el idioma como una nativa. ¿Cuál es su pecado? El mismo que envió a Madame Breshkovaky a las minas de sal de Siberia: es una patriota y daría su vida por liberar a Corea. Maria sabía lo que otros habían sufrido antes de ir, pero eso no debía impedirle contribuir a la causa. Eligió el verso de Tennyson: «El tornillo de pulgar y la estaca para la gloria del Señor». ^{[ 10 ]}

«La señorita Maria Kimm, una joven cristiana de Taiku, ha sido arrestada junto con otras jóvenes coreanas acusada de sedición contra el gobierno japonés. Fue condenada a tres años de prisión con trabajos forzados. Maria Kimm es bien conocida por muchos misioneros estadounidenses en Corea como una de las trabajadoras cristianas más brillantes y enérgicas. Posee una excelente formación académica y ha realizado una labor destacada en instituciones evangélicas y educativas de Seúl y otras ciudades. ¡Una mártir más entre las mujeres coreanas!» ^{[ 11 ]}