Rename McKinley High School

What is currently called President William McKinley High School is one of the oldest secondary schools in the Hawaiian Islands. It was originally established in the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1865 as the Fort Street English Day School.

In November 1869, it was relocated to Princess Ruth’s Palace, and in 1895 it was renamed Honolulu High School. In 1907, the school was moved to the corner of Beretania and Victoria Streets and the school’s name was then changed to President William McKinley High School, for the leading role he played in bringing about the illegitimate “annexation” of the Hawaiian Kingdom to the United States.

The provisions of State of Hawaiʻi policy state that:

The name of a school facility shall be a unique identifier... to identify the facility in other ways that bear ✨ positive association ✨ for the school, school-community, or public education.
MANIFESTDESTINYCOLONIZER OFINDIGENOUS PEOPLEPACIFICIMPERIALISTDESIRED KEYPACIFIC PORTTARIFFED & GOADEDPLANTATION OWNERSENACTED UNLAWFULANNEXATIONPRIORITIZEDAMERICAN INTERESTSMISUSE OFEXECUTIVE POWERMANIFESTDESTINYCOLONIZER OFINDIGENOUS PEOPLEPACIFICIMPERIALISTDESIRED KEYPACIFIC PORTTARIFFED & GOADEDPLANTATION OWNERSENACTED UNLAWFULANNEXATIONPRIORITIZEDAMERICAN INTERESTSMISUSE OFEXECUTIVE POWER

Acknowledging History

The Hawaiian Kingdom never ceded to the United States. Renaming the school’s name and removing the statue are the right actions to correct the false narrative regarding the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands.

The School Deserves Better

The decision will neither diminish the ethos or the school’s achievements, nor negate the accomplishments of the alumni.

On the contrary, the name change and statue removal will demonstrate the courage to tell the truth and thereby, bring even more esteem and reverence to everyone connected with the school – past, present, and future.

Empowering Native Peoples Everywhere

In 2015, the native Alaskan community and its allies successfully renamed Mount McKinley.

Then, in 2018, the city of Arcata in Humboldt County removed its McKinley statue due to his actions that “devastated the lives, cultures, and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific.”

It is now Hawai‘i’s turn. Eō!

5 REASONS TO RENAME MCKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL AND REMOVE HIS STATUE

The McKinley Tariff Produces Devious Insurgents, 1890

As a U.S. Congressman, McKinley sponsored and successfully passed a bill enforcing a tariff on sugar imports which deliberately threatened the sugar industry in the Hawaiian Kingdom.

This act, known as “The McKinley Tariff,” raised rates on imports and substantially reduced the income of Hawaiʻi sugar growers from $12.2M in 1890 to $7M in 1892. Essentially, McKinley effectively goaded a group of sugar planters into becoming insurgents to overthrow Queen Liliʻuokalani in order to establish a provisional government with the ultimate goal of annexation to the United States.

Source:

Kūʻe Petitions & Queen Liliʻuokalani Patriotically Protest Annexation, 1897

The people’s love of their nation, land, and way of life were being threatened by a potential annexation by the United States. Members of the Hawaiian Patriotic League, called the Hui Hawaiʻi Aloha ʻĀina, gathered 21,269 signatures on a 556-paged petition named, “Petition Against Annexation.”

It represented 95% of the native adult population of Hawaiʻi at the time. Names on the petition were also from loyal subjects of the Hawaiian Kingdom, as well as foreign nationals.

Source:

The Fake Treaty of Annexation, 1898

The U.S. took the Hawaiian Kingdom without permission or mutual consent. There still is no Treaty of Annexation between the Hawaiian Kingdom and the United States of America.

After two failed attempts to annex Hawaiʻi on June 16 and September 7 of 1897, President McKinley used The Newlands Resolution, a joint U.S. Congressional action, to illegitimately claim U.S. annexation of the Hawaiian Islands. A joint Resolution in the U.S. Congress is an invalid document that has no power to allow the United States to annex an internationally recognized country.

In actuality, the “annexation” was a bogus, diplomatic fraud between the McKinley administration and the insurgents in Hawaiʻi who, with the foreknowledge of the U.S. Minister to Hawaii (John Stevens) and the assistance of the U.S. marines, successfully forced Queen Liliʻuokalani to yield her Regency on January 16, 1893. McKinley’s actions ultimately displaced Native Hawaiians in their homeland--physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Source:

Programme for Patriotic Exercises Brainwashes Hawaiʻi Students, 1906

Promoting President McKinley’s expansionist goals, the United States replaced the public school curriculum of the Hawaiian Kingdom and also introduced the Programme for Patriotic Exercises as a means of systematic indoctrination for children to believe they were “Americans.” In the philosophy of Manifest Destiny, the objectives of this new propaganda were to systematically denationalize the citizens of the Hawaiian Islands and deprive Hawaiʻi’s native people of their national status, identity, language, culture, health, land, and other freedoms.

A prime example of this was when students entered into class, they stood alongside their desks, and in unison, recited the following salutation:

“We give our heads and our hearts to God and our Country! One Country! One language! One Flag!”

Honolulu High School Falls, McKinley Statue Rises, 1907 & 1911

When Honolulu High School was renamed President William McKinley High School in 1907 and his statue was erected in 1911, it was not simply to honor the 25th president of the United States. Rather, it was a calculated strategy to maliciously remind Native Hawaiians that their culture was rapidly dying--they were now Americans and they had better not forget it.

The name of the school and statue does not symbolize pride or honor; it symbolizes hurt, pain, and injustice. It symbolizes Native Hawaiians who lost everything and live on through their kūʻe and offspring who continue striving to rebuild what was stolen from them. It symbolizes a liar who holds a scroll in his right hand inscribed, “Treaty of Annexation,” when the truth is, no treaty has ever been ratified.

But equally as important, it symbolizes an opportunity; an opportunity to give a small victory back to Native Hawaiians. An opportunity to share that not all aloha is lost and that the Native Hawaiians’ rightful fight for their homeland has not been forgotten or overlooked.

It is the perfect opportunity to show a willingness to acknowledge McKinley’s wrongdoings and, in turn, rename the high school and remove his statue.

Source:

Request to the Board of Education

Our Letter to
Superintendent
Dr. Kishimoto

Aloha e Dr. Kishimoto,

This letter requests your support to change the name of President William McKinley High School. The honor given to McKinley celebrates dishonorable and reprehensible actions by him as President in pushing for U.S. appropriation of Hawaiʻi while knowing fully that more than 90% of the population wanted the restoration of their Queen and their kingdom. I am requesting this change under the provisions of Board of Education Policy 301-8, Naming of Schools and School Facilities:

“The name of a school shall be recommended by the Superintendent of Education. The recommendation, with its supporting reasons, shall be submitted to the Board of Education for approval.”

William McKinley is not only undeserving of having a school in Hawaiʻi named after him, but is also unworthy of a statue being erected in his honor.

In 1907, Honolulu High School was renamed President William McKinley High School because, according to the school website, McKinley “helped to bring about the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States.”

But that underestimates his role. This is the same McKinley responsible for the McKinley Tariff, which substantially reduced the income of Hawaiʻi sugar growers from $12,159,084 in 1890 to $6,963,504 in 1892, and effectively goaded them into the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani in order to revive their profits through Annexation.

Five years after the Overthrow, during an Annexation debate in the Senate on May 31, 1898, Senator John Morgan (known for The Morgan Report) commented:

“The President of the United States (McKinley) has got his mind made up that as a matter of military necessity he is obliged to take those islands and intends to do it.”

There was no military necessity. Instead, there was the ideology of Manifest Destiny, under which the U.S. crushed Indian nations as it expanded its control across the continent, and then the Pacific, taking the Philippines, Guam and Hawaiʻi as well.

Prior to Hawaiʻi being illegally annexed, both the Kūʻē Petitions, objecting Annexation and signed by 95% of native Hawaiian adults, and also Queen Liliʻuokalani’s letter of protest, had reached Congress. It was well known by all in Congress that the newly established government, the Republic of Hawaiʻi, which was a product of the Overthrow, did not represent the will of the people. The U.S. Constitution requires a “Yes” vote by two-thirds of those present in the U.S. Senate in order to ratify a treaty of annexation. After a failed attempt to get the two-thirds vote in 1893, and two more failed attempts in June and September of 1897, McKinley pushed for Joint Resolution 259 (the Newlands Resolution) and signed it into law on July 7th, 1898. In truth, a lawful annexation never occurred because a Joint Resolution of Congress is a domestic measure, having no lawful application or authority beyond U.S. borders. And though the document in the hand of the McKinley statue on the campus reads “Treaty of Annexation,” it represents a lie. No Treaty of Annexation was ever ratified.

When Honolulu High School moved to the corner of Beretania and Victoria Streets in 1907, the name of the school was changed to honor McKinley, an insult to the majority of the people of Hawaiʻi. Then, embracing the Department of Education’s 1906 “Patriotic Program for School Observance--the means for inculcating [American] patriotism in the schools,” President William McKinley High School then became a principal tool for destroying the Hawaiian culture, language, and identity, through the indoctrination and thorough Americanization of the youth.

To have a high school named after a person so dedicated to the eradication of a host culture’s beloved nation would cause great pain for any peoples. In addition, to have that person immortalized as an eight-ton statue would be a daily reminder of the injustices and lies that continue to this day. William McKinley is a false hero. His name and statue ignore his wrongdoings which set the stage for the decimation of the Native people. This is happening in Hawaiʻi, right in the educational system that you lead. One of the purposes of education is to create perpetual learners and seekers of truth. The high school name and statue are contrary to that purpose. If other places across the continent can correct a wrong by renaming their insensitively named schools and removing their dishonorable statues, so can we.

To be very clear, this is not, by any means, a slight to the students, graduates, and memories of President William McKinley High School. A name change and the removal of the statue does not diminish the school’s achievements. Neither does it diminish its ethos or the interests of the alumni. The accomplishments and history will never be erased.

I request that you recommend to the Board of Education that the name of President William McKinley High School be changed and to create a panel of Hawaiian historians to suggest worthy names more deserving of this great honor.

If you would like to be personally briefed on the historical relationship between William McKinley and Hawaiʻi, Dr. Larson Ng, an Educational Specialist in the College of Education at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, is readily available to do so. Dr. Ng is a 1992 graduate of President William McKinley High School. I would be happy to arrange a meeting with him for you.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, concerns, or thoughts. I appreciate your valued time and consideration.

Mahalo nui,

Aoloa PataoDOE Teacher

Co-signed by:

Poka Laenui, Esq.Pioneer, Hawaiian Nation Restoration
Addressed UN General Assembly, 1993

Lyla B. Berg, PhDRetired DOE Principal
State Representative, 18th District (2004-2010)

Williamson B. Chang, Esq.Professor, U.H. School of Law
Author, “The Annexation Myth”

Leon SiuDiplomat
Hawaiian National

Dr. Kioni DudleyRetired DOE teacher
Co-author A Call for Hawaiian Sovereignty

D. Piilani KaopuikiPresident William McKinley HS ʻ62

CC Catherine Payne, BOE Chairperson