May 4, 1932 (L to R: Clarence Darrow, Edward Lord, Deacon Jones, Honolulu’s Sheriff Ross, Grace Fortescue [Mother of Thalia Massie], Thalia Massie, and Thomas Massie [U.S. Naval Officer and husband of Thalia],

Morality is always defined by eras in history…during the 17th through 19th centuries slavery and indentured servants were common everywhere and America was no different…prior to the American Civil War there were four million slaves in the South and three million white folks…after the war ended and African Americans were declared free, the ruling class of white privilege disagreed and kept all people of color poor and uneducated through intimidation tactics, which included beatings, castrations, burnings, and murder often through lynching…
Hawaii was no different as all the residents, mostly Hawaiian or Asian lived to serve the corporate oligarchy, known as the “Big Five", built by white missionary and sugar planter families that helped overthrow the Kingdom for annexation into the United States and the U.S. Navy because of its strategic location to protect shipping lines to and from the mainland United States.
There was a lot of resentment of control, but because Honolulu was small, everyone knew someone who knew someone and got along for the most part, until what is now known as the Massie Case, which I believe became the catalyst that solidified what I refer to as the “Historic Trauma” of racism in Hawaii that continues today.
On September 12, 1931, Lt. Thomas Massie a U.S. Naval officer and his wife, Thalia (both white and from prominent and politically powerful Washington D.C. families) attended a dance at the Ala Wai Inn located by the canal in Waikiki. Thalia, not happy with her husband left the party without him and was seen walking on Ena Road toward another bar/party. Just before 1 a.m. on September 13, 1931, Thalia ran to a car on Ala Moana Boulevard. She had a broken jaw and scuffed cheeks. She was picked up and driven home and said she was assaulted, however when the police arrived to question her, she changed her story and told police she was gang-raped by five Hawaiians.
Because there were so few cars operated by local residents, Honolulu police, following up on another police report, quickly arrested and then interrogated five local men who were now the suspects. Within hours, the police wanting to appease the higher-ups, arraign the five on rape and assault charges. The five were tossed into jail without any legal representation and everyone expected a quick conviction and lengthy prison sentences for these “fiends, thugs, and degenerates” as described by the Honolulu newspapers, which were owned by wealthy white businessmen.
However, that did not happen and after a three week trial, the jurors not believing much of the testimony of Thalia Massie and the lack of physical evidence were deadlocked and a mistrial was declared. The five men were freed, but that was not justice for the Massie family and the U.S. Navy…Within days of the end of the trial, a carload of sailors grabbed Horace Ida, one of the five men on a Honolulu street, beat, clubbed, and belt whipped him to an inch of his life. Then with the help of two of his enlisted men, A.O. Jones and E.J. Lord, Thomas Massie and Thalia's mother, Grace Fortescue, kidnapped, stripped naked, beat, and then murdered one of the other men, Joseph Kahahawai.
The police captured Kahahawai’s killers within hours with Kahahawai’s body in the trunk of their car as they all were driving to Koko Head to dump his body. After their arrest, while the five local men had remained in jail until the end of their trial, these killers were given house arrest and allowed to live in luxury accommodations at Pearl Harbor. Grace Fortescue, then hired Clarence Darrow, the most famous criminal lawyer of American history to defend all four white people for the murder of this Hawaiian man. He decided to take on the defense for the sum of $30,000 (over $500,000 in today’s dollars).
Throughout the trial, Thalia attempted to present herself as an innocent victim. The radio and newspapers across America almost without exception believed her and there was no sympathy for the murdered young man. In a syndicated Hearst editorial — (Hawaii) a place where "the roads go through jungles, and in those remote places bands of degenerate natives lie in wait for white women driving by.” Further, Time magazine blamed the murder of Joseph Kahahawai on himself and his friends, describing them as "five brown-skinned young bucks”..."lust of mixed breeds for white women”… No one seemed to understand the fact that the men’s trial had been a hung jury and they had not been convicted of anything and certainly not the alleged crime by a local jury…However, to 1930’s white America, this only proved that Hawaii was a "cesspool of anti-white racial hatred that did not deserve territorial status". At the trial Darrow stated the murder was an "honor killing” and "customary unwritten law” and therefore justified. He demanded that his clients should be free.
However, the jury found all four guilty of manslaughter and they were sentenced to a mandatory ten years in prison, but, the powers in America put tremendous pressure on Lawrence Judd, the Governor of Hawaii and their sentences were commuted to one hour in the Governor's office. Within days, all four along with Clarence Darrow and his wife boarded a luxury ocean liner and left Hawaii, never to return…
A year later an independent investigation by the famous Pinkerton detective agency and funded by the Territory of Hawaii found that evidence had been tainted against the five local men by the Honolulu police department and the men could not have committed any rape and that in fact the crime against Thalia never happened.
In the end, five innocent local men endured months of imprisonment, one was beaten so severely he never walked right again, and one was murdered...all because of the color of their skin…The Honolulu police department, local and national governments, and the U.S. Navy all conspired against truth and justice to protect the status of white privilege in Honolulu…
In the book, “Something Terrible Has Happened”, published in 1966, Deacon Jones, the sailor under Thomas Massie, admitted that Kahahawai never confessed to raping Thalia after his kidnapping. He also admitted that he was the one who shot “the black bastard” because he “had no use for him”…
The funeral of Joseph Kahahawai had the largest mourners since the burial of Queen Liliuokalani and to this day, many locals when hearing someone speak of the Massie Case still feel their “Historic Trauma” of outrage, resentment, and even hate towards Caucasians and military personnel…Unfortunately, history as I mentioned before is about eras of time and while the Massie Case was despicable everyone must understand the time when it occurred and make sure that we never repeat institutional racism through our education and checks and balances of justice…we must whether we are white, black, brown, local, etc. make sure something like this never happens again..