Category Archives: Hawaiian issues

Portrait of Hawaiian power

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Makua 1976

I appreciated a comment by “Rebecca in Hilo” on an earlier post in which she provided encouraging words about my early photographs as a participant-observer in the nascent modern Hawaiian rights movement of the 1970s.

Her comment made me realize how rare it is to get positive feedback on images that, to my eye, remain powerful and meaningful.

It sent me back yesterday to take another look at some of those photos, and I ended up browsing through images from a “Stop the Bombing” rally on the beach fronting Makua Valley on February 28, 1976. The rally was held less than two months after the original protest landing on the island of Kahoolawe by a group later dubbed the “Kahoolawe Nine.”

Here’s one that was flying under my radar, a portrait of four giants in the Hawaiian movement. From left to right, Gard Kealoha, Winona Rubin, Gayle Kawaipuna Prejean, and Peter Apo. Only Apo is still living, well into his 80s and remains active in the Royal Order of Kamehameha I. In retrospect, quite an inspiring cast of characters!

The photo was taken after the Army sent a female officer to speak to the Hawaiian leaders present at the day-long Makua protest.

I’m sure none except Apo will be familiar to the general public or even activists today, so I asked Google’s Gemini AI to help me with profiles of those who have died. These are dry, factual profiles that don’t convey their colorful natures and powerful personalities. But they do serve to place them in the politics of the period.

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Makua Valley, February 1976: Stop the Bombing

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Here’s one of my favorite photos taken February 28, 1976. Fifty years ago. This for the younger generations who think the opposition to the military control of Makua is a recent phenomenon.

Following a day-long rally across the highway on Saturday, Feb. 28, a group entered property, proceeded past a large Army warning sign, and planted a protest flag. Some of the kids in that photo are grandparents today and might recall their participation.

After Kahoolawe, there was Makua

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The January 4, 1976 protest landing on the island of Kahoolawe made news and continued to regularly continue to make news over the next several years.

Then on Saturday, February 28, 1976, a day-long rally was held to protest the U.S. Army’s continued control and use of Makua Valley for military training. The rally was organized by the Hawaiian Coalition of Native Claims. The group’s director, Gail Kawaipuna Prejean, had been in the small group that had illegally landed on Kahoolawe the previous month in the first of many public protests against the Navy’s continued bombing of the island.

The rally was held on the makai side of the road across from the 6,600 acre Makua Military Reservation. It was a day filled with music, speeches, prayers, and more, reflecting the new and growing political and cultural activism of Hawaiians.

Late in the day, a splinter group crossed the road, ignored the Army’s “No Trespassing” signs, climbed a fence, and proceeded up a small hill where they planted a protest flag. Everyone was in high spirits.

For whatever reason, this public protest failed to capture the public’s attention in the same way that Kahoolawe did.

But I did capture some memorable moments. Click on either photo to see a larger version.

More of the photos that I could that day can be found here.

How long is fifty years?

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It’s an excruciatingly long time. Looking back, I can recall the key events as well as the twists and turns of life within each of the past five decades. So much life lived, so many things observed. But I can close my eyes and place myself back in certain events from 50 years ago, sense memory takes over, and I can almost relive those events again in my mind.

And today marks one of those long-ago events. It is the 50th anniversary of the Sunday, January 4, 1976 when I was part of a small group landing on Kahoolawe, later dubbed the Kahoolawe Nine, as a protest envisioned as a way to put the issues and concerns of Native Hawaiians on the national agenda at the start of the American Bicentennial. It started as the brainchild of Charlie Maxwell to highlight a bill in Congress to authorize reparations to Native Hawaiians for their loss of native lands as a result of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and its subsequent transition to a U.S. territory.

It’s sobering for me to realize that at least five of the original Kahoolawe Nine did not live to see this 50th anniversary–George Helm (d.1977), Kawaipuna Prejean (d.1992), Emmett Aluli (d.2022), and Stephen Morse (d.2025). The Maui News story about the Kahoolawe Nine in 2006 (see link below) reported Ellen Miles had died previously, although I couldn’t find a published obituary or other available record. Walter Ritte is the only other one of the original nine quoted in current news stories.

Maui Now published a story about the anniversary today, as did the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. For more of the story, I suggest Maui News reporter Kekoa Catherine Enomoto’s excellent story to mark the 30th anniversary in 2006, and my own Civil Beat column in advance of the 40th anniversary a decade ago. And SFGate.com did their own story for the 50th anniversary, providing a bit of national coverage.

That’s a photo of me on the beach during our relatively brief time on Kahoolawe in 1976. Lots of my other photos of that first landing have also been posted online for several decades. Someday I`’ll get around to reposting better versions of those photos, but for now they’ll have to do.

Afterthoughts

Here are a couple of suggestions that I wanted to pass on.

First, “The Music of George Helm: A True Hawaiian,” recorded before his death in 1977, is available on Apple Music and, I expect, other streaming services as well. George was more than just one of the Kahoolawe Nine. He was a driving force in bringing Kahoolawe’s message to the public as he criss-crossed the state collecting music and stories as he constantly sought to expand his musical knowledge. It was, as I recall, recorded live at the Gold Coin lounge in downtown Honolulu and, as a result, is a bit rough around the edges in a few places. He was lost far too young.

I would would be remiss if I failed to recommend Steve Morse’s self-published memoir, “First Landing: Story of the Kaho`olawe Nine,” available in paperback on Amazon for just $8.99. I checked Powell’s Books, and Alibris.com, a used book site, in search of alternative sources but didn’t find any. It’s an easy read, based primarily on Morse’s personal recollections, but also placing events in a personal and political context. My copy of the book suffers from the choice of a very light typeface which makes reading a bit more difficult, but that shouldn’t deter you from reading Morse’s account.

And the University of Hawaii Press has republished “Na Mana‘O Aloha O Kaho‘Olawe: Hawai‘I Warriors—Love For Land And Culture,” the diaries of Walter Ritte Jr. and Richard Sawyer, written in 1977, “a day-to-day record of their thoughts and reflections when the two men occupied the island of Kaho?olawe for thirty-five days, using their bodies as shields to stop the bombing and desecration of the island by the US military.”

Also see:

Early days of the Protect Kahoolawe Ohana, February 1976

Walter Ritte on Trial 1976

Sovereignty Sunday, January 1977

PKO at the Federal Courthouse in Honolulu, 1977

Aloha Aina Newsletter 1978-79