Tong Sung Suhr (shown here in a photo from 2002) is a prominent figure in the Los Angeles Korean community who has helped found several organizations like the Korean American Bar Association. He is also related to legendary Korean figure Seo Jae Pil. As to why their family names are spelled different can be attributed to how Koreans tend to Romanize their surnames in a highly individualistic, pick-your-choice fashion. Seo Jai Pil’s family name is no exception: So, Soh, Seu, Suh, Sur, Surh or Suhr.
“Aren’t you related to Seo Jai Pil?”
That’s the first knee-jerk question I blurted out half a century ago when an earnest-sounding student, out of the blue, knocked on the door of my Pacific Grove, Calif., apartment and introduced himself as Tong Sung Suhr, a college freshman fresh off the boat in search of advice for his future studies.
“That’s what they tell me,” said the visitor haltingly, rather surprised by my nosy intuition. “But I know very little about him because nobody has bothered to tell me who he was and how I’m related to him.”
Having just finished journalism school in the Midwest, I was in California’s Monterey Bay area, stringing for local dailies while working on a start-up weekly named Seaside News-Sentinel. I had just finished my master’s thesis, “A Korean History of Journalism up to 1919,” showcasing the 1896 birth of the first Korean-language daily, The Independent, launched by the American-educated reformer at the tail end of the Yi Dynasty.
The 1955 meeting was propitious. Into the wee hours, the ink-smitten pilgrims talked about The Independent and the free press in America. I was impressed by his passion for journalism at a time when pursuing this field was like taking a monk’s vow of poverty.
One-year-old Tong Sung, born to a Seo family member who survived the massacres resulting from Seo Jae Pil’s role in a failed 1884 coup.
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In the next half-century, Tong Song has kept the flame alive, doggedly following in the footsteps of his ancestor’s legacy of “serving the people humbly.” His roles have included reporter, editor, journalism professor, community lawyer, peacemaker and, above all, a founding father of numerous community advocacy/service organizations for struggling Koreatowns in Southern California.
Very early on, the surviving offspring of the 1882 massacre of the Seo family attended the Pai Chai Academy (the first Western missionary school in Korea), Tong Sung’s father’s own alma mater, where in 1895 the legendary founder Henry G. Appenzeller and Philip Jaisohn (the American name Seo Jai Pil adopted) together taught modern Korea’s future leaders, including Syngman Rhee. The school motto? “The road to greatness is through serving others.”
After the elder Suhr, a Methodist church leader, was taken north by Communist secret agents during the Korean War, his mother, Kei Nam Lee, peddled fabrics and cooking oil while Tong Sung, the eldest boy, took charge of five siblings. He then held two jobs to pay tuition while attending Yonsei University. Finally passing four exams, he arrived on the rocky shore of California with ink in his blood.
A photo from the 1955 encounter off of California’s Monterey Bay between reporter K.W. Lee (left) and aspiring journalist Tong Sung Suhr.
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From Monterey, Tong Sung’s journalistic destinations were the University of Oregon (a bachelor’s degree), then to the University of California, Los Angeles (a master’s), with a first stint at the daily Los Angeles Herald Examiner. His next job was as general assignment reporter with the Inglewood Daily News. At night he volunteered as an editor, producing an English page for the historic New Korea periodical run by the Korean National Association during the independence movement. For three years he split his time between the two papers.
