 Welcome back to Talk Story with John Wahe. Aloha everyone. We are continuing our series of heroes, rascals, and duds, the story of the people who made Hawaii contemporary Hawaii. The episode that we are on deals with the Hawaiian Renaissance, and actually more correctly, the period between about 1970 and 1978. And we have for you three outstanding guests who were here two weeks ago, actually, since this is the encore and encore performance of this particular series. We have the professor from the University of Hawaii Law School, Troy Andrade, a very prominent Hawaiian businessman, Waters Martin, and of course, Stephen Morris, who was an author, as well as a director of nonprofit, and is a lifelong advocate for Native Hawaiians and for those that need assistance. So today, you know, I thought I'd start off with the story. We were just talking about it, actually, but in the 1968 Constitutional Convention, James Bacon, actually, who was an activist about that time, a Native Hawaiian that was a delegate to that convention, introduced a, introduced emotion. It was very, maybe Troy, you might pick this up, but it was very minor, I mean, said something along the lines that the state of Hawaii should support Native Hawaiian issues or do a better job with Native Hawaiians. Something along that line, and he wanted some kind of language introduced in the Hawaii State Constitution. And he was basically left off the floor, I think he got about a dozen votes or something out of the entire convention. And yet, I think what's most prominent is 10 years later, in 1978, the world turns upside down. So maybe Troy, you can tell us a little bit about what you know from your research about this whole episode in 1968. Yeah, so the 68 Constitutional Convention was just very different than the 78 Constitutional Convention in terms of the demographics of the folks that were involved, the delegates that were involved. So you had, in 1968, I think about a third of the delegates were actual politicians. The other two thirds were somewhat affiliated with the political establishment at the time. In 1978, you have, I mean, they commonly called it the People's Convention because there was just an active campaign to ensure that the convention represented the people and wasn't inclusive of a lot of politicians. So in 1978, you had seven out of 100 something that ended up being politicians that were politicians that ran at that convention. But in 1968, Bacon was, he was left off the floor for this really simple, the languages I have in here, he wanted in the Constitution language that the state would preserve and enhance the heritage and culture of the Hawaiian people and encourage continued support of Hawaiian traditions. If that is not the most broadest, you know. Pretty vanilla, pretty vanilla. Pretty vanilla language about enhancing Hawaiian culture. And in the minutes, he goes on and he talks about the injustices against the Hawaiian people, outlines it, the overthrow, sort of one by one. And he's left off. And this motion does not get carried by the delegates in 1968. 10 years later, whole different story. Well, you remember James Bacon, right, Steve? Or what, is he the one of you? He was one of the founding members, as you pointed out, of Ololiki. Waters, I'll let you go. No, I don't remember. I remember him. But today, there was something online somewhere. I was Facebook. But there was something about this, that incident. Was it civil beat? There was something. And I was wondering who, you know, who he was? Well, he was one, he along with Winona Rubin, Alvin Shem, who was Pono Shem's dad. And Pinky Thompson all started Ololiki together. Steve, you were around back then and you actually were part of that. About 1974, 75, they organized an effort to get federal, basically federal recognition in order to add basically native Hawaiians to the Native American programs that were being made available to tribes. So in order to organize that whole effort, they formed Ololiki Inc. in about 1975. And this is a unique group of Hawaiians because they were what you would call the people who made it. In a way, you know, because you think James Bacon was pretty active. Alvin Shem was a major labor lawyer. Winona Rubin actually was pretty well known for her work in social work. And Pinky Thompson was sort of the right-hand person for Governor Burns. He was director of the Department of Human Services for several years under John Burns. And he also was the dad as we all come to find out. He was the dad of Daniel Thompson. They were some real power brokers on that board. And they were beginning to take up this issue about Hawaiian activity. Actually, James Bacon became primarily even before Ololiki with the, I think it was called the Congress of the Hawaiians, people of Congress of the Hawaiians on stations or something that started a little earlier in the early 70s as a reaction to the appointment of Betsy Takabuki to the Bishop of State. Does anyone recall any of the people that were involved in that effort? Basically, Kahu Abraham Akaaka was a leading proponent for the organization. I think he was approached by Jimmy Bacon and others in the community to sort of spearhead an advocacy initiative against the appointment of Betsy on the grounds, basically on the grounds that it was time to appoint a native Hawaiian to become trustee that we had qualified native Hawaiian. So by 1974, we really had at least four organizations that we have discussed becoming quite prominent. I mean, the first would have been the Hawaiians working, which was the statewide organization originating in Waimanau, the Congress of the Hawaiian people who reacted. And so I think what we begin to see is we begin to see the spectrum of the Hawaiian population being introduced. And then we have the aloliki, which was pretty much the first non-profit, the first non-profit that was established for Hawaiians. And Luisa Rice of the Aloha Movement. So this is by 74. And 74 is also when we see the beginning that we discussed earlier of the Parka Ranch, taking over Parka Ranch. And as you can see though, all of this is sort of coming together. Does anyone recall any of the early meetings? I remember there was a lot of statewide meetings that we were having. The meetings, I mean, around the activism, I mean, among all of these different organizations created a lot of kuka kuka. Yeah, a lot of conversation about where we were, where we want to be, set some goals and priorities. And I think at one point, Winona Rubin and the aloliki folks stepped in and said, hey, why don't we have a bunch of a series of what they called puvalu in the beginning. And that transitioned into larger ahas, as they call them. And so we had these statewide meetings, and people would come from all over. I remember I was living on Hawaii Island at the time, working for Lily Okolani Trust and out in Lower Puna. And I would make an effort to fly in as often as I could to Onolulu to try and attend these meetings because the discussions were so rich. So rich. No holds barred. It was like, take the thinking caps off and just go. What was really interesting was that the intensity of the meetings, but there was no personality conflicts. I mean, I don't know how to say it. Nothing, everybody walked out of Hawaii. You know, we went in and everybody had their ideas, but there were, there wasn't a situation where you had the Hawaiians taking on the aloha movement. If anything, there was sort of mutual response. Our mutual, our mutual rule at these meetings was, we can agree to disagree. Absolutely. And by the way, to show you, to continue with the evolution of all of this, it was also right about that time in waters, your body, John Dominic got together, started to talk about the need with other people of becoming political. And he got together with the Maurice Oshiro from Lillio Kalani Trust, Masaru, and they, we started this, the homeroom movement. You remember the homeroom movement? Okay, you haven't said much. So what, you got to get into the homeroom movement because a lot of the people that I remember you used to be arguing with in the corner, all came in at the same time, you know. One thing I was thinking about going back, you know, with the takabuki, what they call the takabuki incident. Yes, you know, Paha'u Church, Kahua Kaka, that was where everything took place. And that's where Pinky Thompson came down and tried to, you know, get the Hawaiians to calm us down. From there, we went, remember, we marched around Kamehameha. Yes, yes, yes. And Sammy Amalo made fun of us. But also, Arthur Trast, you know, they went in, and they created, they went into court. They tried to, they were trying to locate the beneficiaries, but anyway, they took it to court. And I don't think they got, they didn't get far. But Arthur Trast talked about in the 1940s before I was born, that there was a time that, it's not the first time Hawaiians were saying, you know, we can't you find a Hawaiian trustee. I don't know if the person, the last thing was Miller, because my family did not go to Kamehameha. So I have to ask, you know, who was the trustee? But Arthur said he did not help much. But what is interesting, while you could complain about, to speak out about takabuki, it was, it was acceptable. And then, you know, a few years later, Project Kahua Olavi comes along, and the various peoples that were comfortable with takabuki, that issue were not comfortable with the Project Kahua Olavi people. You know, a lot of people stepped away, and yet. And yeah, it was a constant, constant of stepping away, coming together, stepping away, coming together, you know, if I, if I remember. And the Takabuki Kamehameha schools are really creating that whole issue, created the idea of Hawaiian things to be run by Hawaiians. And that was what the Hawaiians were trying to do with homesteads. That's what takabuki, the takabuki thing really meant. It wasn't so much a mess. Well, everybody back then knew it was an inside appointment. I mean, the governor's best friend from the consulate gets appointed. Right, and it was a million dollar, didn't they get a million dollars a year? I mean, there was a huge amount. Not then, not then. Because you remember one of the first things, and this is when Nancy becomes popular. Because what happens, Nancy steps into a trust that's essentially land rich and money pool. In the beginning of the 70s, he comes in there, and he kind of changes all of that. And turns it around by having to sell some lands. You see, we begin to see how these things clashing, right? Because some of the lands that they were selling earlier than that was Kalama Valley, which caused the first protests, and then the lands after that. But then Nancy starts to get the trust richer. And then we see the state pass, under Governor Yoshi, pass something called the leasehold conversion law. And then the Hawaiians go a little bit crazy about, and so now we're on the same side, because we're on the side now with the trustee. But I recall the Congress of Hawaiians people and the Home Rule Party meetings being the first time that I can recall us thinking about political organizing. The Home Rule Party wasn't long lived, but there were aspects of the conversations at these meetings that talked about organizing, running our own candidates, voter registration, those kinds of things were being discussed. And what was really cool about Abraham O'Cockoff was that through Kauai Hau Church, he had access to the resources of the United Church of Christ. Yes. And the United Church of Christ is one of the more progressive of the Protestant Christian churches across the country. And they had, nationally, they had a commission on racial justice, and Kauau O'Cockoff talked them into sending community organizers to Hawai'i to begin doing some training and I recall being in the training for about 10 weeks, a Reverend Bill Land. Do you remember him, the Reverend Bill Land? He was an African American from Chicago and he came and talked about all the precinct organizing they were doing to try and get Blacks into county offices and precinct offices in Chicago as an effort to oust Mayor Daley at the time. You know, Mayor Daley was like, he was like the Taisho at the time in Chicago, right? He was the political Taisho and he tried to keep all of his down. So there was some pretty intense community organizing and political organizing going on in Chicago that the Reverend Land brought and discussed as part of the training that he was doing here. So, Gov, if I could jump in about... Oh, sorry, go on. No, no, no. Go ahead, go ahead and try. Okay, go ahead. Jump in. No, I was going to say I wasn't around during this time, but from my sort of looking at all of this, it really was the Alulike and the Council of Hawaiian Organizations and their Puvalu Sessions that really brought everything together. All of these different moving pieces that was happening that we've been talking about all came together in these Puvalu Sessions and from there, they created kind of a platform. I mean, just some priorities that Hawaiians would now have moving forward, which then served, I think, as the framework for moving into 1978 and the Constitutional Convention. You're absolutely right, Troy. What about... What, are you going to add something to all of that? I remember that I didn't... Well, there was that person that came from, I guess, Chicago and who was Black and he was telling, you know, trying to train Hawaiians how to deal with the demonstrations so you get the pukuna out and the keiki's out and the police get in your face. But it was different because the police were kind of related to everybody at that point. But there was that march, you know, through Waikiki and, you know, in fact, my aunt, Laverna Crabbe, you know, who was reconceptor, she was, you know... She went with my mother. I mean, we all walked that. That was one of the demonstrations. Well, you know, you see, now we begin to see Kauanasa and these things now come together with three things that we have sort of done. One was Honokohau, which gave some of us the beginning of a spiritual experience. The other one was the fact that one of the people at Honokohau was Herb Connie. In fact, we had a bunch of Hawaiian, prominent Hawaiians working on Honokohau yet, George Kekolani, who was, I think, his daughter was one of the protesters. Yes, yes. Terry, but George was the architect. And then you had Herb Connie. Richard Kapolulu. Richard Kapolulu, who did all of this stuff. And then Alleroy did all of the oral history for that area, going around interviewing all of the old Hawaiians who used to live there. And she would interview them in Hawaiian. And that kind of activity falls right into the Patek Kaholabi Ohana. Yeah. Because they start to do the same thing. I mean, Daviana McGregor, Emet Aluli, obviously Walter Riddie. Well, Walter was kind of a strange character, though. And maybe I should talk about him since he's Ohana. He might forgive me sooner than somebody else. He's a birdie, man. He's a birdie. He's a birdie, just like you. So Walter was kind of in his different drama because Walter was what you would consider an activist-activist. He didn't like to spend a lot of time knowing why these things need to be done. He just wanted to go do it, you know? So he, and so here, in fact, I'll tell you a story about Walter, which I tell all the time is that I remember going through this Patek Kaholabi Ohana meeting and everybody was sitting around talking about, you know, when we're going to do the next whatever the activity was, that invasion or something. And somebody says to Loretta, Walter's wife, you know, where's Walter? Oh, he already went to the island. But there was a lot of these kinds of things that started. The canoe taught us the pride and then the spirituality that came with the kupunas, with the Ohana and with Ohana Kahol, all of this gets added to what was happening at the Puvalu. So now we're right. John, the Puvalu's also helped develop the leadership that went into the convention as well, anti-Frenchy, you know, and the participation of her in Kaholabi and in the Puvalu. We had, you know, it was the development of leadership, you know, was so key, you know, to it all. You know, what was interesting about the convention itself is that we had actually very few Hawaiian delegates for some reason, despite all of this activity and despite the fact that we started the homeroom movement where Steve pointed out what time, and some people actually ended up running. Darrell Iona became a long time board of education member. Other people started running. There wasn't that many people running for seats in the convention. And so what was exciting was the fact that anti-Frenchy got to be, or Frenchy Disoto, got to be chairman of the Hawaiian Affairs Committee. Now meanwhile, people were going to jail as a result of Kaholabi. I think Walter, I remember the trial, I defended Charlie Warrington. He was the nicest guy you ever want to see. He was determined to uphold himself. So he gets, you know, I don't know if he got, I think he did, very short while. But we get to the con count, Frenchy becomes chairman and she reaches back and she pulls all this rich history you're talking about, Steve, all these leaders into the convention. I mean, were you there, you were, you helped her at the convention, if I remember. I actually, that was like more like Francesco Honey and... Francesco Honey. I was busy getting into trouble on the big island. I was getting into trouble with geothermal energy. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, geothermal energy. The Democratic Party didn't like me because they wanted to fast-track the development. And I kept telling them, you can't do that. You got to study the social cultural impacts first, you know, on native Hawaiians. And they were like, they were like one track mind. And I would go to hearings and, and just like Jimmy Bacon, I would get laughed out of the hearings, you know, on the big island. So I was spending most of my time there trying to, you know, organize, organize people to at least get some more research done. So I didn't get involved that much in the actual, actual process of the, of the convention and what happened with the dealings within the Hawaiian Affairs Committee. But, you know, people like Walter, Walter Reedy. Walter Reedy, you understand. Mildimani Trask was a real active, right? Mildimani Trask was all with this thing. Stephen Kula. Stephen Kula. Stephen Kula had come back from law school. Yeah, from Howard. He was at Howard. And he, he would, he really spent a lot of time in anti-Frenchy. Yeah. And, you know, Francis Gohani, our buddy Francis, because he was in the everything, right? Starting from the Hawaiians all the way through. But Francis, Francis was active long time during the Renaissance. Oh, he did a lot. He did a lot. I think Walter, Walter got involved to some extent in some, I think at anti-Frenchy's pleadings, Walter came in and offered some of his advice at the, at the convention. But you're right. He wasn't much into, into political, in the content and all of that. He just liked to do, which meant that when Walter used to, used to see Walter do it all the time, was walking the halls, getting signatures on various resolutions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was very, I mean, that really important. That convention was, that convention was so critical in terms of where we are with Hawaiian language with the olelo right now, with Hawaiian homes and, and, and sunny championing all of the Hawaiian homes amendments at the. Sunny came by the convention. I think most people don't realize that, that the convention, that each, every one of the line groups we mentioned actually ended up having an amendment placed in the Constitution. These came out of the ahas and of poobahas. And I think we have to mention the Oha amendment, the office of Hawaiian affairs amendment, you know, whatever people might think about Oha good or bad, it now, it now is the trustee for close to $500 million in assets for Hawaiians right now, which you know, I think that's a considerable trust, you know. One of the other rascals that is not getting enough credit, I think in this conversation right now is actually John Waihei, because if you think about the, the convention, if you look at the legal documents that came into the convention for Hawaiian affairs, they're only focused, the legislative reference bureau was only focused on Hawaiian homes. That's all the Hawaiian issues that would be addressed. And it was Governor Waihei in talks with anti-Frenchy and sort of all these other organizers that came together and said, you know what, we're going to do something else and we're going to bring all of these ideas and we're going to make it happen. And, Gov, you have some really fascinating. Yeah, and something with your show, but. That was really hard for you, John, because you had to deal with, with that plantation luna named Bill Pady, right? Yeah, and something, something we're going to get, but there was so many interesting people that don't get credit. Don't get credit. You know, like we just mentioned Francis, you know what Francis, Francis said, Francis used to be always in the back of the room. He'd be smooth with his cigar and he would be watching how everybody voted, you know, on the Hawaiian affairs issue and he would check them out. I'll tell you another non-Hawaiian to a couple other non-Hawaiians that who became very central to the Hawaiian provisions was John Pennybacker from the Fabulous Five. John Pennybacker was anti-Frenchies vice chairman. Oh, I didn't tell you that. Yeah, and let me tell you, if you ever said anything negative about it, about Frenchy, you would get a visit from this six feet, seven inch guy to give, to discuss your decorum, you know, and your respectability. The other person was Charlene Ho. Charlene Ho, why? Charlene Ho, fabulous person. The whole water, everything to do with water came from Waihole Waikani. Yeah. And they were really carried by Charlene Ho and we go back to the Kalahiki brothers and Randy and all of them, you know, Michael, Pete Thompson, Pete Thompson. You know what is interesting? What I remember was the day that the convention was going to vote on whether Hawaii should have statewide initiative was the day that your grandfather tried and other Hawaiians, and I think Steve, you were with them, occupied the airport in Hilo. Yes. Well, I wasn't in the big one where they marched on the landing strip. I was part of the initial one where we had a convoy that locked up the whole road going around the Hilo terminal. We organized enough cars, convoy of cars, three lanes going around the entire Oval so nobody could get in and out of Hilo airport for like three, four hours. And these are the kinds of things that were happening when the Con Con was going on that actually had an influence in the Con Con and with people passing. It was almost like a coup was looking out for us. You know, I didn't participate in the occupation of the landing strip when they knocked down the gates in Kaukaha and that whole mob of people came on because you know, I was really afraid that somebody would get hurt. Well, you know, I had just come from losing my two friends, George Helm and Kimo Mitchell. Who we need to talk about. Kaho'olavi, Kaho'olavi, absolutely. They went missing at sea in 1977, right? And right after that, I was asked to help organize the landing strip occupation, but I didn't have it in me to do it. I just felt that it was too dangerous, you know. I knew the governor was going to call out the National Guard and there would be a confrontation that would come this close to being very volatile. So I kind of stayed out of it. But our convoy was lots of fun, man. You know, but it worked because the way that sort of translated back into the Pete Thompson gave a speech here at the convention where he talked about the fact that someday, if we're not careful, we're going to lose initiatives because they have more money than us. But the one thing we can do is vote with our bodies and that's happening, you know. And so anyway, these things all were in the same realm. You know, a little sidebar, John, about Pete Thompson. Later on in his life, he became a broker for Morgan Stanley. And a very good one. A very good one, yes. There was something, in fact, I had a friend of mine that said that the best capitalist people who were former communists because all they did was study economics, you know. But Pete was a real character, man. He was. Oh, man. One of the guys we didn't talk about, and we're running out of time, is George Hell. You brought him up and George was special. I mean, he was like above all of us at the time that we were doing all of this stuff. I mean, he had a vision that was, yeah. He was smart. He was handsome, charismatic. He could sing the lights out and play music. I always thought that he could, and I write about it, you know, that I always thought that he could galvanize Hawaiian people just through his music, like Gabby and Eddie, Kamai, and later on, Brother Is did, you know, through his music, yeah. But we will never know. Yeah, we will never know. No. One of the most, for me, one of the great moments in my life was on the beach at McKenna. Oh, no, in Hanna. We remember in Hanna. We had a Luau in Hanna for the Hanna. And he, after the Luau, he sang in the gym. And boy, if you want to see a unified group of people just listening to this music, completely committed, it was special. Anyway, got a couple of his concerts, one in Kanakukai, and that I remember, and one on at Vidina Stadium on Kauai, you know. Fabulous. Yes. Talk about, I mean, inspiring, you know, he'd get up there and he would, he would not only sing, he would talk about the stories around the back stories of these music that he was singing and some of the protests that was in the songs, the traditional songs he sang, you know. And why the Hawaiians sang what they did because he would be pulling all these old songs out. Our time is actually over, so Steve, you got any last words? And then I'm going to go to Waters. I think I spoke too much already. Waters, you got any thoughts? Anybody we missed? Anybody special you want to mention or anything? I was thinking about Francis Cowell, honey. You know, I haven't seen him in decades. He's in Pu'u Kapu Waimea. He's in Waimea. I think his daughter. He has a Hawaiian homestead pastoro lot in Pu'u Kapu Waimea. That's what I heard. By the way, part of the story, you know, cutting the gate with the Hawaiians, people should know that one of the people that eventually got a pastoro lot out of that at the last day in Kaneko. So none of this actually was just wasted. So now, Waters, anything else? I was thinking about Auntie Peggy Haoraz. Didn't she lead the group onto the tarama? All in her whites and very dramatic? Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You know, the Kapuna have never failed us, you know, over and over again. And she had a daughter, Lily Wu O'Kalani, that was very outspoken as well. And I think Lily Wu is still active with stopping the bombing at Pu'u Kapu Waimea right now on Oai Island. But yeah, us old activists, we never die, you know. We haunt you the rest of our lives. Okay, with that ball pass, Troy, you got it for any kind of closing remarks? All I'll say is this is, you know, really great conversations and I'm glad this is recorded. A lot of the things that were happening in the 60s and 70s, I see happening today. And you, says all kind of repeating itself, right? Like I see Mauna Kea as the Kaho'olave, right? I see all of these issues with Hawaiian language coming back to the forefront, right? And I think it's exciting for young people to watch these kinds of conversations, to learn about the convoy, like strategies for how you shut down places. Yeah, they get better organized and better planned than we were. They learned from our mistakes. Well, everybody, thank you so much. Oh, hi, everyone. God bless you all. God bless. Take care. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.