Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Native Hawaiian leader Charles Maxwell dies at Maui Memorial
POSTED: 12:16 a.m. HST, Mar 16, 2012
LAST UPDATED: 04:05 a.m. HST, Mar 16, 2012
A Native Hawaiian leader who played a key role in preventing the continued exhumation of hundreds of Native Hawaiian burials at Honokahua, Maui, died Thursday afternoon.
Charles Maxwell of Pukalani, Maui, died at Maui Memorial Medical Center after a prolonged illness. He was 74.
Maxwell was a police officer for 15 years, working the beat on Maui and Molokai before retiring, and working as a Hawaiian cultural expert with his wife Nina to operate the Pukalani Hula Halau.
He was a leader of a group called Aboriginal Lands Of Hawaiian Ancestry, a group in the early 1970s that supported sovereignty for Native Hawaiians.
He also was among Hawaiians who supported the Native Hawaiian occupation of Kahoolawe in the mid-1970s, claiming religious rights to visit the island and opposing the military bombing and manuevers on the island.
The protest eventually led to the return and partial cleanup of Kahoolawe.
Maxwell was a member of the Hawaii advisory group to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, when he criticized the “desecration” and opposed the exhumation of native Hawaiian burials at Honokahua to develop the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua.
About 900 skeletal remains were exhumed before the work stopped.
Eventually, the resort agreed to stop the digging and relocated the hotel further mauka to stop the digging.
“Daddy was a fighter. He wasn’t afraid of speaking what he felt and saying what was right,” said his daughter Sheri Maxwell.
"Worked within the system"?
Sorry, but the occupations of Kaho`olawe by Uncle Charlie and activists inspired by his leadership was NOT "working within the system." It was refusing to work within the system. It was disrupting "the system" and refusing to allow it to continue on its way. Uncle Charlie knew, and said at the time, that it was necessary to go outside of the system in order to have an effect.
There is nothing right about "working within the system" when the system is designed to serve interests other than those of the people. It is OFTEN more "pono" to OPPOSE the system and force IT to adapt to us rather than for us to adapt to it.
Here, in his own words, is Uncle Charlie on the beginnings of the struggle to stop the bombing of Kaho`olawe:
http://www.moolelo.com/kahoolawe-awakening.html
I offer this as an opportunity to listen again to the wisdom the man had to share in the hope we can all become more "pono" and brave in our activities.
Aloha, Uncle Charlie. And thank you.
Limbaugh doesn't single out and target Hawaiians based on their national origin. However Conklin does. Ken Conklin is like Ken Conklin. Very rude. NO CLASS.
Charles Maxwell was a GIANT leader in the movement for Hawaiian rights. He inspired two generations of activists, He will be missed, but he lives on through the work of those he counseled and taught.
Aloha, Uncle Charlie!
‘Soul Sessions’ feat. Taimane
