 I'm Maisha Joyner and we are navigating the journey and today's journey is with of course a very special friend and all of you that have been with me know I only talk to special friends so but today we are going to rewind the clock and go back to the very beginning of the Martin Luther King holiday and so with that I want you to meet Alice Talbert in fact it was her idea to have a holiday so Alice Aloha my dear oh aloha Marsha and yeah we're going to talk about the Martin Luther King holiday in Hawaii in Hawaii yeah it was October I never will forget October and I had just moved in to this house I was exhausted the phone rang then those days you know you had the cord on the phone and it was Alice and she said Marsha Marsha I just saw Jesse Jackson and he says Hawaii didn't have a holiday and we must have a holiday and I thought oh god as tired as I was I said Alice you're right we should I can't do it but I'll tell you how so that is that conversation you know in that minute that idea was born and it was Alice so I called they they Kennedy and I said Alice just called said we have to have a Martin Luther King holiday and she said that's right so let's so we created the friends of the Martin Luther King holiday and they said you know we have to have people of every ethnic group in Hawaii so that this is not a black holiday so that is in that two or three minutes that's how all of this began so thank you yeah and and it was interesting because you know I had been aware that we hadn't there weren't very many states that did not have a holiday Hawaii was one of them this was in the 80s and so you know I happened to live I was new to Hawaii I come in from the mainland and I'd only been here a couple of years I didn't know many people Marsha was one of them and so I did know a few of the legislators so I went to the Capitol and I spoke with at that time was Leslie horror he had he had just gotten elected and I was talking with him and I said so how come we don't have a holiday and of course he says to me well Alice this is the thing it has to be grassroots grassroots I remember being a little angry at the time because it seemed to me that they could have just you know designated a holiday that's what we have legislators for seemed to me but he said that and I says okay all right at that time my attitude was like okay just hold my beer let's watch this and so I started getting in touch with people and you know in that time there weren't very many black people here at all in terms of statistics very very few and so I knew it wasn't going to be a black holiday although that's what I heard people say and I reminded them that it wasn't Dr. Martin Luther King was not he did things for everybody right and that that that African Americans in this country were you know we were catching it and so that's where he started but it wasn't a racial thing at all yeah and that was in 1986 yeah to be exact to be exact yeah yeah and so anyway that's that's what we did we got in touch with we started off with the African Americans and so only group I knew and but it expanded quite a bit oh yes it expanded a lot it didn't get passed in the first year that we started out it got passed in the second year yeah second year and by that time the crowd was enormous oh it was enormous it shocked me and I remember when it got passed we were in one of the chambers and it was standing room only it was packed and the discussion was okay we'll have a holiday but we have so many in Hawaii we can't just add another one what are we going to do so somebody says let's get rid of one yeah well that was the union the unions said that that their contract was limited and therefore they won't they were on our side they want to pass it but we had to do something to get it to limit it and because if they open their contract then who knows what they would lose so they wouldn't do that so they were willing and I was outside and the crowd was mocked and I said yeah why don't we get rid of first of Good Friday I'm not only Catholic in the bunch oh I almost came away when just barely came away with my head yeah nobody was going to give up Good Friday no so they were looking at which holidays to eliminate and of course eliminated eliminated discoverers day it was at poor Columbus because nobody who was there they're right well it used to be called Columbus but it's discoverers day yeah and I thought discoverer didn't discover anything so discoverers day was eliminated so anyway I got in the elevator was leaving and there were elevator was packed and I noticed there were a lot of local people there so I looked up at one of the local people and I said what had you what had you support this and he said Martin Luther King I'll never forget he said Martin Luther King um reminded us and had us be proud of our heritage proud of our our pigeon proud of our language proud of our hula and and we absolutely supporting that um so anyway that's that's that's what was said that was the support there and I remember wanting the holiday out of the fact that although I didn't have grandkids at the time I wanted that whenever I had grandkids I wanted them to march in a parade for someone who was about peace so that was my um that's what got me going besides we just kind of embarrassing to be living in a state that didn't have a Martin didn't celebrate Martin Luther King's holiday now and the in the in the house where everything was happening Mrs. King came to the state to campaign for the holiday and she was a guest in the house of representative and so she's asking all of these questions about why we don't have a now why we don't have a holiday and she's really well you know she's beautiful and really selling why we should have a holiday and the speaker of the house turns to her and says well Mrs. King we don't have very many negroes and everybody in the house just sort of uh it did take a while if you'll remember right at the end the two years the end and everybody's on board and they said okay and they're in the conference and so the big thing was what is the name what are we going to call this thing and um there was all kind of holidays and holiday for this and holiday for that and then there's this little voice way in the back of the conference in this crowd and she says why don't we call it what it is Martin Luther King holiday and everybody said well of course it's like oh yeah and that little voice was Maisie when she was in the house oh yeah yeah and you know so that's my Maisie story I have to tell it all the time about Maisie yeah yeah yeah and so those that's how all of this and then of course uh John Wahey our first Hawaiian governor was absolutely delighted he he came on board and he was thrilled to sign it and he has always been a part of the holiday every year since then yeah yeah it's been amazing um and now looking at it's been it's an amazing time we're living in now too it is today on the television while they were debating I guess that was a debate on the um impeachment I was amazed at how many people quoted Martin Luther King ah yeah yeah yeah uh-huh and uh it was a historic day but now as we move on we have it was the people going to Selma to to cross the bridge and we have a picture of of the people leaving from Hawaii and the lay as you can see in the pictures uh they were given the lay to take two Selma boxes of lay from uh a a kaka brethren a kaka and the foundation donated the lay for them to take to Selma well oh this one was in the fifties I think or sixties and that's at UH when he was here to speak at UH I think that's the date on that picture and that was when he was meditating airport and of course you know we always give lay but the next one I think yes that's the one that's the pettus bridge and this is where they're going across the bridge but this was after it was a second time across the bridge after that one where they beat um Jared Lewis so badly so this one was the next time and it's it's amazing absolutely amazing how far we've come since uh since that idea of yours how far we have come oh yeah yeah well you know the other thing is that I don't know if people remember of course of orange it's a memory but appreciate what it was like during the times of Martin Luther King you know what it was actually like the apartheid in this country was fierce oh yeah um deep the deep south we used to call it the deep south uh Alabama Mississippi Georgia Florida you know Florida uh huh yes the carolinas you know all of those places were so outrageously we can look back and see how outrageously horrendous it was for people of color to live there well it was it was unbelievable when I was a child in Baltimore and the signs were black were white and colored which is a name they called us in those days and here's the sign over the fountain water fountain outside water fountain and I'm standing there because it was not much higher than me of course and I'm standing there turning the water waiting on it to come colored I'm waiting on it because you know I love I love crayons and the crayola box they have color and I'm standing and waiting and I'm turning and turning and waiting on the color the water is a great color come on colors right right I went way in the colors come on yeah yeah oh no it was yeah it was it was horrendous during those times and the courage that it took to do what he did um because it was really open season or killing uh people you know uh black people it was just open season and they didn't have to account for it oh no they still don't they yet exactly exactly yeah yeah so um I just would like I just I just like to appreciate remember particularly during this time during the holiday or during his birthday look back and appreciate what he went through and what courage it took um for him to you know lead a movement the way he did when um with the Montgomery bus boycott and now this is one of those deep dark secrets that those people don't know about um he he was elected to head the boycott when because and this is this will tell you the extent the extent to which way people went he was new in town and he did not have a mortgage he didn't have a car payment he didn't have any of those things that they could take away from him that they could close a bank account they could close on a mortgage they could do all of those things and they did all the time that's how they control and so when they said here's the new creature in town we've got to do something and that was how he was elected because he didn't have those things that they could control I didn't know that yeah but well it makes sense right this is this is the way they played the game yeah um that was that was just one of the things one of the many things they did right right yeah um but you know you didn't live in the south so you don't know no I actually was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and there wasn't apartheid there uh well I could say government sanctioned apartheid but any apartheid there had to do with where you lived um and actually you know just like in most places uh our family lived in uh neighborhoods that had both races and I went to school with both races uh in Pittsburgh but my mom who wanted to be able to support the family her daughter is me and my sister couldn't get a good job in Pittsburgh so the government was willing to hire uh black people and so she moved to Washington DC to get a job with the government but she didn't want me to live there because I'd have to go to a segregated school in Washington DC they had schools or or uh Negroes as we would call them and whites and she did not want me to go to a uh segregated school so in 1954 when Brown versus Board of Education was passed and schools had to be integrated I moved to DC I went through schools where a school where there was a picket line where the white people didn't want want us or me to go to that school I was so naive Marsha I didn't because my family kind of you know um they made sure I didn't I wasn't exposed to to that horrible um racism so I didn't really know what why there was they were picketing I was so through the picket lines to get to my classes but I was rushing through I didn't read the the placards so I had to ask somebody at school who happened to be a white girl I said so what you know what is it why are they what who's picketing how come they're picketing and she just a little embarrassed so she told me I said well why don't they want us to go to the school she said well you know people think that black people aren't as smart as white people I said really now I knew that was a lie because I knew very smart black people and very stupid white people so I knew that that wasn't as it's okay so really what is it and she's bet you so all some people think black people aren't as clean I knew that was a lie because who cleaned the houses you know who was very clean I went hmm if I could just find out why these people acting like that we could say okay whatever we did apologize and get on with life that was my attitude boy was I in for a rude awakening well in Baltimore the home of Nancy Pelosi and all of the Dell Sandro's but that's another story in May I was sitting in front of the television in one of those little 10-inch televisions that we had in those days and I saw all this confusion and all of these white women just mad as hell and that's when they announced that about the Board of Education and that schools would be segregated so this is Baltimore so they interviewed Mrs. Coughlin who was the principal of the school and she says and she's dressed beautiful in the Republican pink suit you know the look the little white hair you know the look very very stylish very expensive she says I will never see a colored girl graduate from my school now her school was western high school in Baltimore and it was all girls in Baltimore they were not only segregated by race but by gender and she says I will never see a colored girl graduate from my school colored was what they call this in those days and so um and and western was a high monkey muck school as you may suspect so come August there were five of us that showed up at her school and and again hand picked I don't know who picked us but we were hand picked now so we went through the whole school and honestly no one ever spoke to me no one ever shared their lunch with me or sat near me at lunch time or their notes or anything nothing I went through all of that in utter silence which is as you know I talk a lot but so here we are at the end of this ready for graduation and it was the first day of June and everybody's ready for graduation and we do all the nonsense with you know the pictures for this yearbook and blah blah blah so now that we're ready for graduation and Mrs. Coughlin that lovely lady in the pink suit Mrs. Coughlin turned her face to the wall and died she never saw a colored girl graduate from her school what do you mean died I did she went to her dead she's dead she she she turned her back and dropped dead I said she turned her face to the wall as this as old folks one day to leave oh when did she die before we graduate day before we graduated she never she never saw and and I'm the shortest one in the class so I'm the first one in line and she never saw a colored girl graduate from her school interesting oh now I took it very personally and it's only been 60 years and I still kind of you know I'll get over it one day not today yeah right wow we have a question here what impacted King's work have on social justice movement in Hawaii you want to take that well I wasn't in Hawaii at the time no but this was in the 60s yeah that was in the 60s I wasn't in Hawaii however in terms of the holiday I was told by the person in the elevator that the impact was that the Hawaiians or I guess you know locals began to feel proud of it more proud of themselves more empowered I guess I use the word empowered more empowered to appreciate their culture that's what I that's what I was told in that elevator well we were just about to run out of time but I have one more question what needs to be done within the schools and education institute and what more education yeah more telling stories about what really happened and real quick I gosh I didn't know we'd gone that fast we are down to the end but I want to change the subject here and that is we want to campaign to have DC become a state statehood for DC Washington DC and the reason that it was not done 100 years ago because the legal women voters have been campaigning for 100 years to have DC a state they did not want two black senators from DC that was the whole basis of it and that is the same thing that was told when Hawaii was trying to become a state and the woman that told me about it uh she's Hawaiian Mark um Laurence Martin and her husband was white and he's from Alabama and she was a national committee woman and it was because of her husband and he campaigned saying it won't be a brown state trust me it won't be a brown state but that was the same crap that the let the capital the senators gave for not having Hawaii as a state exactly the same thing that they're still doing for DC so uh we have a couple pictures from DC I don't see District of Columbia some people District of Columbia yeah and they have 72,000 people but no representation no um and they've been like I said campaigning for 100 years for statehood and what they can do the schools is tell the truth that for the school look at this yeah tell the truth tell the truth because the um the corporation that publishes school textbooks they there's a lot that isn't told the truth and you know when we first started with the overthrow and found out that the textbooks didn't tell the truth about the overthrow which was amazing how that you know they said oh the queen gave the land to oh come on it was amazing you know so absolutely amazing so the answer to the question is you're right just telling the truth so if and there are now a lot of books written by local scholars and that's where finally people are telling the truth about all of this telling the truth and teaching physics teaching children how their government works because this government is a democracy meaning that people have to participate yeah teaching children how to participate absolutely how to participate and especially uh when you have like the palace for instance just a tour of the palace tells so much and there's so much history right there right there and there's so much so many people make make great great scholars the books the new scholars just enough just great I think we're out of time oh wow that was so fast but Alice thank you so much for spending the time with us well thank you for having me it's just wonderful it is so and for the callers I hope that we got your questions answered and so join us you have to write a letter to our senators tell them to vote for statehood for the district of Columbia so again thank you people we'll see you next time