February is Black History Month, but the story of African Americans in Hawaiʻi is one that is often not heard.
As part of our continuing project with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's Center for Oral History, we're taking a listen to some of their voices.
Ethnic studies professor Ethan Caldwell has the story of two African Americans who had very different experiences in mid-20th century Hawaiʻi.
Ulyless "Mushy" Robinson was born April 10, 1909, in Los Angeles. He was an entertainer in Harlem, Chicago, and Akron, Ohio, and moved to Hawaiʻi to teach tap dancing in 1935. Robinson also worked at the Pearl Harbor shipyard and the USO during World War II. He retired in 1980 after 30 years as a skycap at Honolulu airport.
Ulysses shares his insights about building community with Black and local folks during his early years on the island.
Robinson: This lady needed a tap dancing instructor and she hired me. I taught with her about a year, year and a half in Hollywood. And then she bought this studio in Honolulu and we come here in 1936. She asked me, did I want to go, and I say, "Well, I never been Honolulu before, one place is just like another to me." Being young, I went for the Honolulu because it sounded good to me. So that allowed me to come to Honolulu.
Interviewer Kathryn Takara: And were there any other Black people here when you arrived here?
Robinson: In town, I would say it was about 15. But, outside, there was about four or five, out in the suburbs. We'd go down the music hall, play music all day, go play cards all day, go rehearse over there, hang out over there, see we had local friends. There was no problem making local friends.
Takara: So then did you start to make friends with some of the Black people that came in, as they came in for the war years and for the war?
Robinson: Oh yeah, yeah. I had a lot of Black friends but most of my friends were Hawaiian or something else because I'd been here five or six, eight years before they even come over here. So I had more Hawaiian friends than I had Black friends.
Lucille Maloney was born in Georgetown, Kentucky, and spent her childhood in Detroit. She reflects on her time as one of two Black women working at the Pearl Harbor shipyard, where she eventually retired as a secretary.
For Maloney, building community came with addressing local misconceptions about Black people from local folks.
Maloney: See, I arrived here October 1945. The war was over when I come. In the shipyard, at that time, there was only two Negro women that I knew — myself and Clarissa Wildy. We were only ones throughout the whole shipyard and there were over 5,000 employees there. When I first come, I went to luaus. When I went to work in the shipyard, they didnʻt like me. I guess I was kind of strange to them. You find that the local people knew nothing about the way we lived. Because one day in the shipyard, one of the girls called me and she was talking about Black people and she said something about color. I think it was about my color. And I said, "Well, we have blondes, blue eyes, everything you can name in our race." So she said, "Well, the only thing I know about a Negro is that they're real black and get real short hair." See, that was the extent of her knowledge. She didn't know any better. And I've found that was true with a lot of them.
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Both interviews were conducted in 1988 by Kathryn Takara. This oral history project is supported by the SHARP initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities through the American Council of Learned Societies.
