Aluli helped rouse
Hawaiian activism

For decades, Kahoolawe stood uninhabited, forming a triangle with Maui and Lanai and serving as a bombing target for the U.S. military.

But in 1976, nine young protesters, among them Emmett Aluli, occupied the island. Their act of defiance helped awaken the native Hawaiian movement, to make both Hawaiians and others think in terms of justice and fairness for those who had been displaced from their original lands.

"It started as part of the process of figuring out the rights of access of traditional Hawaiian activities," Aluli, 56, a primary care physician since 1975, said from his clinic on Molokai.

"Then it became a calling, a directive from the elders to straighten this out. We had to correct things from the historic perspective," he said. "There was an abuse of the physical area -- we had to heal the land."

The Protect Kahoolawe Ohana has grown from a force occupying the "Target Isle" into a commission overseeing ordnance-clearing and replanting on the isle. "It is going to be cleaned," Aluli said, "not clean for general use -- there will never be a golf course or a hotel built of cement there -- but it will be used."

And the group, working through grassroots and the local community, will play a part in native Hawaiians' future, he said.

The next generation will bring a more coordinated and cooperative approach to the push for sovereignty, Aluli predicted.

"Our children are making headway in different ways. For instance, when I graduated from medical school, I was one of about a dozen Hawaiian doctors.

"Now there are 190."

About this Series The Honolulu Star-Bulletin is counting down to year 2000 with this special series. Each installment will chronicle important eras in Hawaii's history, featuring a timeline of that particular period. This is the final installment. Series Archive Project Editor: Lucy Young-Oda Chief Photographer:Dean Sensui