Today is the 50th anniversary of that Sunday, January 4, 1976, when the “Kahoolawe Nine” landed on that island.
Jr. Bow Ian Lind ’65, one of the nine, states, it was “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.”
The group included Ian, Walter Ritte, George Helm, Emmett Aluli, Kimo Aluli, Kawaipuna Prejean, Ellen Miles, Steve Morse and Karla Villalba.
From the Star*Advertiser: Today begins a yearlong series of Aloha ‘Aina Events to commemorate the original landing of the Kahoolawe Nine at Kuheeia, Kahoolawe, eight miles from Maui across the Alalakeiki Channel, and efforts over the decades to partially clean up remaining ordnance and debris through $400 million in federal funding that Congress approved in 1993, followed by the Navy’s gradual return of the island to the state beginning in 1994.
University Lab School * University High School * Junior Bows Alumni * Honolulu, Hawaiʻi 