The community is invited to listen, learn from and share their views with local, Hawaii and international speakers about a variety of topics through the Global Citizenship Speaker Series.

This illustrated presentation features kumu Ronald Williams Jr., who will join via Zoom, to speak on how the Native-led government of Hawaii, a relatively minute group of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, managed to become a core member of the family of nations that dominated 19th-century international politics. And what the Kanaka ‘Ōiwi leaders did with this status? Join us in looking through the primary-source records to learn more about the Hawaiian Kingdom as a prominent global citizen.

Dr. Ronald Williams Jr. holds a PhD in History with a specialization in Hawaiʻi and Native-language resources. He is a former faculty member at the Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge at UH Mānoa and was the founding Director of the university’s Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center. He served as President of the 132-year-old Hawaiian Historical Society and has published in a wide variety of academic and public history venues including the Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion in America, the Hawaiian Journal of History, and Hana Hou! Magazine.

The speaker series is presented by the Molokai Bahá’í Community in collaboration with Molokaʻi Public Library to encourage conversations around global issues of importance to Molokai.
Everyone is welcome. Light refreshments will be served. Please call the library at (808) 553-1765 to request the Zoom link.

Anyone who requires an auxiliary aid or service for effective communication, or a modification of policies or procedures to participate in a program, service, or activity should contact library staff as soon as possible. Advance requests 48 hours or more before the event are encouraged, but not required. All programs are subject to change. See a schedule of upcoming events on the HSPLS Events Calendar.