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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, January 20, 2002

State to honor civil rights hero

 •  African Americans' role in Hawai'i noted
 •  Holiday schedule of events
 •  What's open and closed on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

Elizabeth Murphy Oliver and her young daughter were bused to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel with other military family members upon arriving at Pearl Harbor aboard a transport ship in October 1946.

The young girl watched as her mother, a third-generation member of the Murphy-Oliver family that at one time had the world's largest chain of black-owned newspapers, was having a heated discussion at the front desk.

"Everyone else, except me and my mom, were allowed to check in," the girl recalled.

Adm. Chester Nimitz intervened on behalf of the Olivers but to no avail. She and her daughter were taken to Schofield Barracks to spend the night in a cottage.

Oliver was the wife of Army Capt. Marshall Kelvin Hood, an ordnance company commander. Her daughter, who lived in Guam, Saipan, Rota and other Pacific Islands during the post-World War II cleanup period, returned to Hawai'i in 1970 as the wife of an Air Force officer.

In the next decade, MarshaRose Joyner would help spearhead the Jan. 11, 1989, proclamation establishing a holiday in Hawai'i in memory of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

"Today, anyone can stay in any hotel you can pay for," said Joyner, president of the Dr. Martin Luther King Coalition in Hawai'i. "But when a black man gets into an elevator at a hotel, you can still see women clutching their purses. I've seen it happen here with (National Football League) Pro Bowl players.

"The body language is still there. That attitude comes from the media sensationalism and demonizing that people buy in to. The same thing is happening to Arabs, or people who look Arab, since Sept. 11."

The holiday will be marked tomorrow in a march from Magic Island to Kapi'olani Park, with 4,000 people expected to participate.

A unity rally will follow from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. But, without thought of discrimination in America and what fairness is about, tomorrow sadly becomes just a day off from work for many people, local leaders said.

For others, the ongoing advancement of civil rights is King's legacy. The struggle for dignity and fairness among people, ensuring no one is short-changed of opportunities to better themselves because of race, socioeconomic status, politics or gender, affects everyone, they say.

"A lot of people (here) don't realize that Martin Luther King Jr. stood for equality and justice, not just for African Americans, but for everyone who felt disenfranchised," said Gwen Johnson, 66, a retired special-education teacher.

Following the August 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, King determined that without economic justice, talk of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was only a figment of political imagination."

The affiliations of two local unions — the Hawai'i Government Employees Association and United Public Workers with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — is rooted in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.

"The issues of fairness and dignity is what tied the movement and labor together into a marriage," said Rusell Okata, HGEA's executive director. "The struggle continues today; we still have unfinished business."

William Hoshijo, executive director of the Civil Rights Commission in Hawai'i, said the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is meaningful here because of local history.

"When we celebrate this holiday, we should think of Hawai'i's own proud civil rights history," Hoshijo said. "It's tied to the efforts of the plantation workers' struggle to organize for better living conditions, the move from a segregated society to an integrated society and the distinguished service of the 442nd (Regimental Combat Team) and 100th (Infantry Battalion).

"Not all of this happened that far away. We all have benefitted from civil rights movements."

Joyner, Johnson, Dr. John Edwards Jr. and his wife, the former Ella Law, are among longtime Hawai'i residents from the same generation as King — people who have a before-and-after perspective of the civil rights movement.

John and Ella Edwards were in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963, when King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. Edwards, 68, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, Vietnam veteran and president of Diagnostic Laboratory Services, noted, "It was probably the most moving and memorable event of our lives."

The son of a Detroit physician who was not granted privileges to practice at hospitals, Edwards has been able to realize his own dream since moving to Hawai'i in 1966.

"We were accepted in Hawai'i and I feel fortunate for the opportunity to live here," he said. "Like everywhere else, there are individual prejudices here but I've found these prejudices do not hinder opportunities.

"Today, I feel I could be competitive for any job I was qualified to do. That is a legacy Martin Luther King and many other people contributed to. The underprivileged, labor, women, gays, any put-upon people have benefited. What he did was make the country walk its talk."

Johnson, Ella Edwards and many others were not allowed to attend the state university of their choice. Johnson, a Georgia native, received money from the state to go to a college other than the University of Georgia.

"We're still striving to be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin," said Johnson, one of 25 Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority members in Hawai'i who have organized to provide scholarships to local black students.

In November 1986, Joyner and Faye Kennedy organized a group to establish a holiday to honor King in Hawai'i. Blacks accounted for 2 percent of the local population at the time so "all the other ethnic people had to come together to pull it off," Joyner said. "They saw that Dr. King was more than black issues. When he was killed, Dr. King had just begun a poor-people movement. So many movements have come out of the civil rights movement."

Joyner recalled that lawmakers, at first, wanted to call the new holiday, which would be celebrated annually on the third Monday of January, "Heroes Day."

They were discussing other names when "a little voice from the back said, 'No, the name will be Martin Luther King.' It was Mazie Hirono."

The HGEA and UPW supported the holiday.

"Hawai'i and Arizona were the only two states that did not have a Martin Luther King holiday," Okata said. "We felt there was a need to understand and pay attention to fairness. We had to trade a holiday and gave up Discoverer's Day."

Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.