| Abstrakt: |
Legislative and public debate over Hawai‘i’s proposed statehood coincided with the intensification of the African American freedom struggle in the US. South as well as the post-World War II rise of anti-colonial nationalism in Africa and Asia. To white racial conservatives, these were interrelated threats, each challenged the once-dominant association of whiteness and access to democracy. This article uncovers and analyzes the widespread grass-roots opposition to Hawaiian statehood among white Southerners. In doing so, it casts post-World War II racial conservatism in a new light: by illustrating how segregationists turned their attention to places far beyond the borders of the US. South to defend the ideology that legitimated Jim Crow; by highlighting the persistence of a race-based anti-imperialist sentiment; and by exploring segregationist ideas about race, religion, and the right to self-rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
