Hyeongpyeong Movement

Also called: Joseon Hyeongpyeongsa

Butchers (baekjeong) founded the Joseon Hyeongpyeongsa in Jinju and campaigned to end caste discrimination and win equal treatment.

The Gabo Reform of 1894 abolished legal status distinctions, but discrimination against the baekjeong continued. They were marked separately in household registers, their children were refused school places or made to sit apart, and they were scorned in marriage and daily life.

In April 1923 in Jinju, South Gyeongsang, baekjeong such as Yi Hak-chan and Jang Ji-pil and intellectuals such as Gang Sang-ho founded the Joseon Hyeongpyeongsa — "equal like a scale". Its prospectus declared that "fairness is the foundation of society and love the true nature of humanity". The society soon set up branches across the country, moved its headquarters to Seoul and allied with other social movements. Farmers hostile to the baekjeong attacked it in an anti-Hyeongpyeong movement.

Under repression and internal strife in the 1930s it changed character, renaming itself Daedongsa in 1935 and becoming a body defending its members’ economic interests.