From Symbol of Division to Cold War Asset: Lyndon Johnson and the Achievement of Hawaiian Statehood in 1959

Abstract

Abstract After its annexation in 1898, Hawaii remained a territory of the United States, lacking full democratic representation in Washington, DC for sixty‐one years. While there were various factors that led to this delay, the overwhelming reason was the consistent opposition of the Southern Democrats to the admission of a new state with an integrated mixed‐race population. By the early 1950s the statehood question was largely being fought out in the United States Senate where the close balance of power between the Democrats and the Republicans made the expected political identity of future Hawaiian Congressmen seem like a decisive issue. It was Lyndon Johnson who was able to break that deadlock, and a significant reason for Hawaii's admission into the Union in 1959 was Johnson's switch from opponent to advocate in the mid‐1950s. Aware of changing conditions both domestically and internationally, Johnson realized the need not only to keep the Southerners of his own party under greater control but also to project a more favourable international image of the United States in the context of increasing decolonization around the world. The achievement of Hawaiian statehood was at the centre of both these initiatives.

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