Tahi Mottl-Reynolds

We wished “aloha ‘oe” to Dr. Tahi Lani Mottl-Reynolds on Monday, April 27, 2026 following a brief illness. She was an advocate for women’s rights and civil rights, dedicated educator, researcher, wide reader, loving family member, and green thumb.

Daughter of intellectuals and political advocates Joseph Mottl and Iwalani Smith Mottl Sneidman, Tahi was born in Honolulu, HI in the wake of World War II. As a child, alongside her siblings Kamala and Joe Pepi and her many cousins, Tahi explored her lush Makiki neighborhood barefoot, spent time with her grandparents Nolle Smith Sr. and Eva Jones Smith, and helped raise many pets.

Tahi attended the University of Hawaii Laboratory School through her childhood, graduating from University High School in 1963 with many friends and a love for dancing and the beach.

She then became a busy University of Hawaii at Manoa student, volunteering in Botswana and serving in the student government at UH. Tahi graduated in 1967 with a major in Sociology and passions for Art History and French. She later reminisced frequently about her travels as a young adult in Europe and in Japan with her sister Kamala. Another formative college-era experience was working at the Dole Pineapple cannery on Oahu with family members and friends.

Fiercely proud of her Black American heritage, she nurtured a lifelong dedication to civil rights and progressive change, a resolve that only grew when she arrived in Washington, DC during the uprising after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination to work as a staff assistant in the office of Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI). Rep. Mink was the first woman of color and first Asian American woman elected to Congress. Tahi also spent a summer organizing with civil rights movement groups in Mississippi before beginning graduate school at Brandeis University. She went on to earn her Masters and PhD in Sociology from Brandeis, where she was initially shocked by New England’s snowy winters. Her research focused on women community leaders during busing and school integration in Boston, and she was involved with the Black Women’s Oral History Project.

Tahi had a rewarding career in academia and advocacy, publishing widely cited research on social movements and countermovements, including a seminal article on the analysis of countermovements. Over the course of her career, Tahi taught classes at Harvard University, Occidental College, Catholic University of America, and Washington College, and was also awarded several research fellowships. Tahi also contributed to multiple sociology research and education advocacy organizations, and was a founding board member of the Washington, DC nonprofit Reach for College. In the 2010s, she returned to Hawaii to teach at several colleges in the University of Hawaii system.

Tahi and former spouse Dennis Reynolds met in Chicago, IL and raised their daughter Dennell in the Washington, DC area. Tahi was a dedicated supporter of her daughter’s extracurricular activities in sports, Girl Scouts, and the arts. The family regularly visited grandma Iwalani and step-grandpa Ernest Sneidman in upcountry Maui. Tahi and Dennis also proudly visited Dennell in Beijing, China three times when she studied and worked there as a young adult.

In recent years, Tahi enjoyed making new friends at her community garden, reconnecting with cousins and old friends, and keeping up with her University High School classmates through reunions in Honolulu and frequent Zoom get-togethers. She spent time with her daughter and son-in-law, did yoga and Tai Chi, walked in Rock Creek Park, journaled daily, and cataloged and donated her doctoral and women’s oral history papers to the Schlesinger Library in Cambridge, MA. Tahi was a news buff who frequently attended protests and political events and phone banked for Democrats.

Tahi is survived by daughter Dennell Reynolds (husband Bryan Yannantuono) of Washington, DC; brother Joe Mottl (wife Dr. Sherri Tisza, nephews Pepi and Akayah) of Honolulu, HI; niece Legacy Russell (partner Andreas Laszlo Konrath, great nephew Ernie Russell-Konrath) of New York, NY; former husband Dennis Reynolds of Basye, VA; and a wonderfully wide web of ohana in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nevada, California, and beyond. Tahi was predeceased by her exuberantly radical, loving sister Dr. Kamala Mottl.

Tahi will forever be missed for her sense of humor, strong moral compass, love of classic R&B and folk music, eye for colorful fashion, and daily emoji texts to loved ones.

Dates for summer 2026 celebrations of Tahi’s life in both Washington, DC and Honolulu, HI will be shared privately. In lieu of flowers or other gifts, donations can be made to:

Swing Left

The Schlesinger Library at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute: click “Give,” then choose “Schlesinger Library, General Support” from the “Select a Fund” drop-down list, then fill out the rest of the information in the form. If possible, please also select the checkbox “This gift is in honor or memorial of someone” and fill out Tahi’s name