For years, U.S. military bombs thundered across Kahoʻolawe, ripping into its red earth and poisoning its seas. For Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians), the damage cut deeper. Ancestors honored the island as a physical form of Kanaloa, the god of the ocean, navigation, marine life and deep ancestral knowledge. In 2026, fifty years after a daring landing helped stop the bombing, the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana (PKO) is marking an anniversary that reshaped Hawaiʻi with the University of Hawaiʻi serving as a key place where many movement leaders emerged.
Davianna McGregor, UH Mānoa professor emerita, remembers when the struggle for Kahoʻolawe first arrived on campus was urgent and deeply personal.
“One day, after the first landing on Kahoʻolawe, Hawaiʻi musician George Helm and Dr. Noa Emmett Aluli showed up at my class in the George Hall auditorium and asked to speak to my students about Kahoʻolawe,” said McGregor who co-founded the university’s ethnic studies department. “Their powerful message resonated with my students and they were inspired to get involved in the movement to stop the bombing and military use of Kahoʻolawe.”
That moment helped ignite student activism across the UH Mānoa campus. Haumāna (students) circulated petitions in classes, set up educational tables at Campus Center, and organized rallies and concerts including one featuring the then-emerging Makaha Sons of Niʻihau and Helm.
Kahoʻolawe Nine
On January 4, 1976, Helm, Aluli and seven others had evaded a U.S. Coast Guard blockade to land at Kūheʻeia on Kahoʻolawe. Known as the Kahoʻolawe Nine, their act of bold defiance sparked the formation of the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana and the modern Aloha ʻĀina movement. Their courage led to tangible change. The bombing of Kahoʻolawe ended in 1990. In 1994, the island was returned to the State of Hawaiʻi, held in trust under state law for a future sovereign Hawaiian entity, setting a precedent for halting military destruction of Indigenous lands.
“We formed an ʻohana to protect the island and to heal her wounds,” McGregor said, “and elevate the island once again into the sacred Hawaiian cultural center that it had been under our ancestors.”
The movement came at a devastating cost. Helm and Maui native Kimo Mitchell were lost at sea while carrying out efforts to support the occupation of Kahoʻolawe. Their disappearance deeply affected many in Hawaiʻi and strengthened PKO‘s commitment to aloha ʻāina for generations.
Stewardship in action
That commitment also took root physically at Ka Papa Loʻi O Kānewai at UH Mānoa, established largely by PKO members and ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) practitioners. Guided by kūpuna including Uncle Harry Mitchell of Keʻanae (Kimo Mitchell’s father), students learned that caring for land and caring for people are inseparable. Today, the loʻi continues to reinforce student learning in the realm of Hawaiian traditional practices of kalo (taro) farming.
That legacy also continues through ceremony and education on Kahoʻolawe. Kaliko Baker, associate professor at the UH Mānoa Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language, leads the annual Makahiki ceremonies for the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana, honoring Hawaiian deity Lono and maintaining the kapu of ceremony upheld to this day. Since 2014, Baker has also helped spearhead Kawaihuelani’s I Ola Kanaloa program, taking Hawaiian language students from UH Mānoa, Hilo and Maui to Kahoʻolawe each year.
“It’s important that UH students continue the pilgrimage to Kahoʻolawe and experience the kapu that has driven the movement to stop the bombing and reestablish Kānaka Maoli education and practice on island,” said Baker who first traveled to Kahoʻolawe as a student in McGregor’s ethnic studies course. “Student access to Kahoʻolawe invigorate the mauli of each and every student who makes the journey, which in turn builds the mauli of the lāhui.”
Laʻa, Maʻa, Paʻa
As PKO marks its 50th anniversary, leaders are calling for Laʻa, Maʻa and Paʻa (to sanctify, sustain and solidify). The framework is both belief and action, guiding how Kahoʻolawe is protected and how future generations carry the work forward.
Half a century after the landing, the island no longer trembles with bombs. Where explosions once echoed, there are now footsteps, ceremony and learning.
—By Moanikeʻala Nabarro
