This is an edited transcript from a YouTube video posted in 2017
In the early 1970s, several Hawaiians landed on the target island, Kahoʻolawe. I say target island because military, the U.S. government, had taken control of Kahoʻolawe in World War II to conduct training exercises and bombing practice.
It was more or less an uninhabited island because thereʻs no good supply of fresh water there. But by the early 70s, Hawaiian consciousness was raising, particularly in terms of who owned and controlled land. Large tracts of land in Hawaii that had been seized by the people who overthrew the Queen in 1893. These lands were later ceeded by the provisional government that had taken over after the overthrow. These lands were ceeded to the United States government, who turned around and gave most of them to the State of Hawaii after statehood in 1959.
George Helm, Walter Ritte, and others made a number of illegal landings