HONOLULU (CN) — One morning in September 1931, Thalia Massie, the white 20-year-old wife of a white Navy officer, showed up at the Honolulu police station, bruised and bloodied.
There, she told officers a harrowing story of what she said had happened to her the night before. She was headed home from a night of dancing, she said, when she was abducted, beaten and raped. Her attackers, she said, had been a gang of local Hawaiian men.
Massie’s accusation kicked off what became known as the Massie affair, a spiraling Depression-era controversy that ultimately spawned two separate criminal trials.
It’s sometimes remembered as Hawaii’s version of the Emmett Till saga. Like in that case, dubious allegations by a white woman led to violent reprisals against the nonwhite purported aggressors. The suspects had a solid alibi, and a Hawaii government investigation ultimately cleared them — but only after Massie’s family had killed one of the suspects.
In other ways, though, the Massie affair was messier and more complex. Till’s accuser, Carolyn Bryant, said only that Emmett Till had touched and whistled at her, and even those allegations have long raised doubts.
In the Massie affair, there was clear evidence that Thalia Massie had indeed been harmed — though the details on what really happened remain a mystery. Extensive and inflammatory coverage of the case did little to clear the air.
The Massie affair took off in the press, stoking furor among white residents. The Honolulu Advertiser and Star Bulletin newspapers, both run by white transplants from the mainland, took the side of Massie. Here was a woman of “refinement and culture,” the Advertiser wrote, attacked by so-called "fiends" and "thugs."
Other local newspapers — the working-class papers run by Native Hawaiians and nonwhite immigrants — saw the situation differently, pointing out inconsistencies in Massie’s story. Regardless, Massie’s police report should not be seen as the true start to this saga. Instead, the Massie affair was the culmination of decades of racial tensions, which in the 1930s finally boiled over into criminal trials and vigilante justice.
From the day Captain Cook first arrived in Hawaii in the late 18th century, Native Hawaiians were branded as savage and beastly, a primitive people in need of white guidance.
That treatment continued as local missionaries arrived to convert the islanders and as American settlers set up plantations. An underclass soon emerged, including not only Native Hawaiians but also Asian migrants, mostly from China and Japan, who worked alongside them on plantations.
In 1893, less than 40 years before Thalia Massie made her allegations, wealthy white settlers overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani, bringing an end to the unified Kingdom of Hawaii. Just seven years later, in 1900, Hawaii had become fully a territory of the United States.
The U.S. wasted no time installing a heavy military presence in the islands, taking advantage of their position in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. By 1930, when Navy Lieutenant Thomas Massie was stationed in Hawaii, a racialized status quo had emerged, with wealthy white business owners and military members on top and an Asian and Pacific Islander majority below.
The plight of Native Hawaiians was likely not on Thomas and Thalia Massie’s minds on September 12, 1931 — the night of the alleged assault. Instead, the couple relaxed at the Ala Wai Inn, a Waikiki nightclub that has long since closed. (The building itself is now the Hawaii Convention Center.)
The young and reportedly unhappily married couple became separated during the night. Thomas spent the night partying at the nightclub, while Thalia left the Ala Wai Inn alone sometime before midnight.
