Harawira has been an outspoken political commentator and a civil rights campaigner. She was part of a small group which formed the Waitangi Action Committee in 1979 to shut downWaitangi Day celebrations until the Treaty of Waitangi was honoured. Dame Whina Cooper, Eva Rickard and Titewhai Harawira led a hikoi at Waitangi in 1985. In 1990 she went to the Netherlands to ask the government there to take back the name "New Zealand" so that the original Māori name "Aotearoa" could be used instead. She is on the New Zealand Maori Council, and she is a talkback host at Radio Waatea. For many years Harawira has escorted New ZealandPrime Ministers at Te Tii marae, Waitangi, during Waitangi celebrations. In the 1970s Titewhai as a member of Ngā Tamatoa advocated for a "friend in court" for Māori who were appearing in court in the cities. This program later evolved into the Duty Solicitor. Ngā Tamatoa also promoted Te Reo Māori in primary schools and Hana Te Hemara presented a petition of over 30,000 signatures to parliament in 1972, which led to the Maori Language Act, the development of Kohanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa, Wharekura, Maori Television, Iwi Radio and Wānanga. Ngā Tamatoa leadership, asked Titewhai and Witi McMath to approach Whina Cooper to lead the Hikoi Whenua - the Maori Land March in 1975, to stop the alienation of Māori land. In 1974 she stood unsuccessfully for the Auckland City Council on a Labour Party ticket. In 1989 she was jailed for nine months for assaulting a patient at a mental health unit she ran. In 2006, a delegation from Te Taumata Kaumatua o Ngapuhi Nui Tonu went to Parihaka to meet with elders and to participate in a consultative visit of the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Rodolfo Stenhagen. In March 2007 speakers for Te Taumata Kaumatua o Ngāpuhi: Titewhai Harawira, Nuki Aldridge and Mere Mangu in a judicial conference with the Waitangi Tribunal sought an independent hearing or an alternative tribunal for hearing Ngapuhi claims against the Crown. The Ngapuhi claims challenged the Crown to honour He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti of Waitangi as the founding documents of the Maori and Crown relationship. Pereme Porter and Theodore Gray alleged the Crown engaged in acts of war against Ngāpuhi. Titewhai, Nuki Aldridge and Mere Mangu with Moea Armstrong of Network Waitangi selected an Independent Panel of Observers for the first Ngāpuhi hearings in 2010. Subsequently in 2012 the Panel published "Ngāpuhi Speaks- Commissioned by Kuia and Kaumātua of Ngāpuhi, He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Independent report on Ngāpuhi Nui Tonu Claim".
Personal life
Titewhai Harawira married John Puriri Harawira and they had eight children, including New Zealand politician Hone Harawira. Her husband died when the youngest child was eight years old.
