Haunani-Kay Trask (October 3, 1949 – July 3, 2021) was a Native Hawaiian activist, educator, author, and poet. She served as leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and was professor emeritus at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She was a founder of the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, and served as its director for almost ten years. Early life and education Haunani-Kay Trask was born on October 3, 1949, to Haunani and Bernard Trask. Trask and her family are descendants of the Piilani line of Maui and the Kahakumakaliua line of Kauai. She was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up on the Koolau side of the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Trask graduated from Kamehameha Schools in 1967. Trask attended the University of Chicago, but soon transferred to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she completed her bachelor's degree in 1972. She earned a master's degree in 1975 and a Ph.D. in political science in 1981, both also from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her dissertation was revised into a book, Eros and Power: The Promise of Feminist Theory, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 1986. Career Haunani-Kay Trask was a founding member of the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She served as its director for almost ten years, and was one of its first tenured faculty members. During her time at the university, Trask largely helped to secure the building of the Gladys Brandt Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, which would become the permanent center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. In 2010, Trask retired from her director position but continued to teach about native political movements in Hawaii and the Pacific, the literature and politics of Pacific Islander women, Hawaiian history and politics, and third world and indigenous history and politics as an emeritus faculty member. Beginning in 1986, Trask hosted and produced First Friday, a monthly public-access television program that highlighted political and cultural Hawaiian issues. Trask co-wrote and co-produced the award-winning 1993 documentary Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation. She also authored the 1993 book From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii, which was described by Cynthia G. Franklin and Laura E. Lyons as a "foundational text" about indigenous rights. Trask published two books of poetry, the 1994 Light in