Harry Lehua Kamoku left home at age sixteen and worked as a seaman for a dozen years before returning to the Big Island to organize waterfront workers into a union in the 1930s. Of Hawaiian-Chinese ancestry, Kamoku and his fellow union pioneers on the Hilo docks have been credited with forming the first multi-ethnic union in Hawaii. On August 4, 1938 Kamoku led 250 union members and their families in a picket against a

CAPTION: Harry Kamoku, (third from right) with ILWU founder Harry Bridges (center) at the 1946 California Labor School held for ILWU leaders.