In Defense of Black History in Hawaii: How the Dr. Martin Luther King Birthday Became a Hawaii State Holiday

In January 2025, Daphne Barbee-Wooten, a Hawaii historian and social activist attorney wrote the article below describing the campaign to make the Aloha State recognize the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King as a state holiday.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth date (January 15) became a federal holiday within the federal government in 1985. All federal employees were able to take off from work with pay on Dr. King’s birthday. Banks were closed, the Post Office and other federal agencies were closed. Hawaii, however, was one of the last states to recognize Dr. King’s birthday even though it has by far the most racially and ethnically diverse populations in the United States.
Hawaii, known as the Aloha state because of its friendly and welcoming nature, has had a small African American population since the 1820s when Black sailors, mostly on whaling vessels, first arrived and decided to remain in the islands. Many became entrepreneurs and musicians and married into the Hawaiian population. Betsy Stockton, a Black missionary from New Jersey, arrived in 1823, is the first known Black woman to live in Hawaii while Anthony Allen, an ex-slave, greeted white missionaries who arrived during this period as an advisor to Hawaii’s first king, Kamehameha I. Between the Civil War and World War I, Black farm workers arrived from the South to labor on sugar and pineapple plantations. In 1928 Nolle Smith became the first Black man elected to the Hawaii Territorial Legislature and in 1954 Helen Hale began a half century political career that led to her becoming the first the Black woman elected to the Hawaii Legislature in 2000, and the oldest person ever elected.
World War II brought thousands of Black soldiers and sailors to the islands including many how stayed. They created the first branch of the NAACP in Hawaii. In 1961, the most famous Black person in the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Honolulu. By the 21st Century, other African Americans arrived including celebrities such as Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Oprah Winfrey, and Wally Famous Amos, along with a growing number of middle-class people who worked in business or for the federal government. By 2020, African Americans comprised 2.4% of the state’s population. In 2022, the African American population was 2.2% according to U.S. Census.
Dr. King visited Honolulu twice, first in 1959 when he addressed the Hawaii State Legislature and in 1964 when he was invited by students to speak at the University of Hawaii. Dr. King spoke of Hawaii being an example of living in harmony with people of different races and ethnicities.
Despite this background, the Hawaii State legislature took no action to make Dr. King’s birthday a holiday until 1986, when a group of African Americans living in Hawaii, calling themselves the African American Leadership Committee, worked to ensure the state recognized the birthday of the nation’s preeminent civil rights leader. From 1986 to 1988 we held meetings at Reni’s nightclub located in Aiea, a section of Honolulu. Reni’s was owned by Roger Mosley, who starred as TC in Magnum, P.I., a popular TV show filmed in Hawaii.
The members of the African American Leadership Committee included Howard Stretch Johnson, Bettye Jo Harris, Faye Kennedy Daily, Marsha Rose Joyner, Atty. Daphne Barbee Wooten, Atty. Andre Wooten, English Bradshaw, Dr Kathryn Waddell Takara, Jewel McDonald, Alice Talbot, Reverend Ruben Creel of Trinity missionary Baptist church, the state NAACP President Ira Vanderpool, Dr. Donnis Thompson, Dr. Alonzo DeMello, Atty Sandra Simms, George and Terry Rainey, Ron Williams of Afro Hawaii News and Mahogany, Michael Freeman, Wanda Pate, Lilly James artist, William and Patricia Anthony Rushing. Non-African American supporters included Congresswoman Patsy K. Mink, Rev. Gene Bridges, Paster of a Unitarian Church, Rev. Abraham Akaka of Kawaihao Church, and U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka.
The African American Leadership Committee organized marches to the State Capitol and wrote articles and letters to the editors of local newspapers, encouraging Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to become a reality for Hawaii. Public speeches were given, and meetings, lobbying, and press conferences were held to explain the need to make Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’ birthday a state holiday and that civil rights was for all citizens.
Hawaii lawmakers, none of whom at the time were African American, gave two major reasons for not passing a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was that there were not enough Blacks in Hawaii to justify the holiday and that the major labor unions in the state would not support such a holiday. This reasoning did not make any sense since it was already a federal holiday.
Dr. King’s widow Mrs. Coretta Scott King traveled to Honolulu to lobby legislators to make Dr. King’s birthday a State Holiday in 1987. She met with dignitaries at Honolulu City Hall including Mayor Frank Fasi who supported making Dr. King Jr.’s birthday a holiday. On the other hand, singer Stevie Wonder vowed not to come to Hawaii until it Celebrated Dr. King’s birthday.
The African American Leadership Committee and its supporters were finally successful in persuading legislators to change their minds. Prominent Hawaii politicians such as U.S. Congresswoman Patsy Mink, U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka, Honolulu mayor Frank Fasi, and Governor John Waihee also persuaded the legislature to do the right thing.
Finally in 1988 the Hawaii state legislature passed the bill, HRS section 8-1, making Dr. King’s birthday a holiday in Hawaii. Hawaii’s Governor John Waihee signed the bill making it a State holiday but substituting the holiday for Columbus Day holiday. Members of the legislature argued that Columbus Day was removed as a holiday because Columbus is not recognized as discoverer in Hawaii and because the recognition of Columbus represents an insult to Indigenous people who founded Hawaii and were on the Island and continental U.S.
Hawaii was one of the last states to pass the King Birthday legislation, a delay that undermined the State’s “aloha” spirit which was supposed to embrace civil rights and equality for all. After the holiday was enacted, Stevie Wonder came and sang “happy birthday to ya” at the Blaisdell Convention Center to a sold-out crowd celebrating the new state holiday. On January 15, 1989, the sixtieth anniversary of Dr. King’s birth, a peoples parade marched down Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki to celebrate the first King Holiday in the islands. This parade has become an annual event, commemorating the King holiday on the third Monday in January. People from diverse backgrounds but with African Americans in the lead, participate in these parades. People carrying banners of Dr. Martin Luther King’s quotes, music and songs from the civil rights era, rainbow-colored floats with flowers and ferns, protest floats, mingled with military marching bands, high school bands, unions workers, teachers, dance clubs, antique car owners, motorcycle club members, beauty queens and kings all march in these festive parades. A Honolulu city bus with Rosa Parks’ photo on it is followed by garbage truck workers marching in the rear, symbolizing the garbage strike Dr. King led right before he was assassinated in April 1968. The parade begins at Ala Moana Park and concludes in Kapiolani Park where the people of Hawaii recall and revere the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Do you find this information helpful? A small donation would help us keep this available to all. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone.
BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Your donation is fully tax-deductible.

source