Sang Whang (October 16, 1931 – January 24, 2011) was a

Korean American Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian Americans ...

church leader and community advocate in Florida.

Personal life

The eldest of four children, Whang emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in December 1951 at the age of 20, arriving at

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

by ship. After arriving, he enrolled in the

Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn The New York University Tandon School of Engineering (commonly referred to as Tandon) is the engineering and applied sciences school of New York University. Tandon is the second oldest private engineering and technology school in the United Sta ...

to study

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

; he received his bachelor's degree in 1956, and his master's from the same school in 1966. He met his wife Mary, who was born in

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populatio ...

, while a student there; she had emigrated to the States along with her father, who worked with the U.S. army in South Korea. His wife died in 1995 after a ten-year battle with lung disease.

Political and religious activities

Whang was the founder and first president of the Korean Association of Greater Miami. In 1976, he became an elder at the Korean Presbyterian Church of Miami. In 1998, he received the Essie Silva Community Builder Award from the

United Way of America United Way is an international network of over 1,800 local nonprofit fundraising affiliates. United Way was the largest nonprofit organization in the United States by donations from the public, prior to 2016. United Way organizations raise funds ...

's Miami-Dade branch. In 1999, he became the first

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

to serve as chairman of the county Community Relations Board, which was established in 1963. He was especially interested in promoting better relations between the Korean American and

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

communities, an issue which became of greater concern to him in the aftermath of the

1992 Los Angeles riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and the Los Angeles Race Riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, in April and May 1992. Unrest began in S ...

Alternative health

Apart from his political activities, Whang ran his own business, Alkalife, which promotes alternative health practices such as the use of far

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

radiation to promote growth and health of living cells. He

self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pri ...

a book entitled ''Aging and Reverse Aging'', about the alleged health benefits of high-alkaline water and other alternative health practices. After his death, his son Peter Whang took over as Alkalife's head of research and development.

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whang, Sang South Korean emigrants to the United States 1931 births 2011 deaths American male writers Polytechnic Institute of New York University alumni