(BIVN) – One of the speakers at this past weekend’s Lā Kuʻokoʻa educational conference in Hilo was Ron Williams, previously a teacher at the Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, now working at the Hawaii State Archives. Williams has a Ph.D. in History of Hawaii at UH.

In his “A Nation Refuses To Forget” presentation, Williams guided attendees on a dive into the archives of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Williams was one of several speakers at the two-day Lā Kuʻokoʻa conference held at the Hilo Boys and Girls Club. Lā Kuʻokoʻa, on November 28th, marks the day Great Britain and France formally recognized the Hawaiian Islands as an “independent state” in 1843.