The protesters were acting against the eviction of low-income farmers to redevelop the land as a resort area.
Before Kaiser's development plan, the land was a salt-water marsh, much like Waikiki before the construction of the Ala Wai canal.
Bishop Trust told the residents to leave the valley before July 1970 because they had given Kaiser permission to develop the land.
[3] During the protests Senator Nadao Yoshinaga criticized the Bishop Trust and suggested that the State of Hawaii buy the land.
The evictions in Kalama Valley were seen as an attack on the slow-paced, Hawaiian way of life by (mainly white) landowners.