June 7, 2024 Hello , Sometimes it comes to me at the end of the day, the perfect words I wish I would have said, the perfect zinger or words that might have made a difference. Then again, sometimes I don't speak up because I think it's no
use. If Black Americans had kept quiet because it seemed like white America would never listen, we wouldn't have laws banning discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. What's amazing, it that close to fifty years before Congress passed civil rights legislation, a Native Alaskan Tlingit woman spoke a few choice words to a roomful of men, spurring the Alaska's territorial government to outlaw discrimination. Behind Elizabeth Peratrovich's words in 1945 and the chorus of voices calling for civil rights in 1964 was a hell of a lot of organization and hard work. That's what makes change happen. Still, what we remember, what continues to call us to greater efforts toward justice are those few
choice words uttered from experience and delivered with conviction. Here's the story of Elizabeth's zinger!
Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich had lived most of their lives in small fishing villages in the archipelago of southeast Alaska, which were remote from Alaska's segregated city schools, hospitals, theaters and
restaurants. Then in 1941, they moved hundreds of miles north to the teeming city of Juneau, capital of the Alaska Territory. Nearly everywhere No Natives Allowed signs greeted them, effectively barring them from most public places. They found a home to rent in a nice neighborhood where their three children could play with neighbors' children. When the homeowner discovered they were native, he refused to let
them move in.
Front Street, Juneau, circa 1943. Alaska State Library. Winter and Pond Collection. ASL-PCA-1050.
The Peratrovich's were already dedicated to improving the lives of Alaska's native people through the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood, the latter founded by Elizabeth's father. Their outrage at blatant and pervasive discrimination in Juneau focused their activism, starting with a letter to the territory's governor Ernest Gruening, asking him to use his power to end this unfair treatment throughout the Territory. The letter pointed to specific injustices: Our Native people pay the School tax each year to educate the White children, yet they try to exclude our children from these schools. And they put the issue into a larger context: "We were shocked when the Jews were discriminated against in Germany. Stories were told of public places having signs, No Jews Allowed. All freedom-loving people in our country were horrified at these reports, yet it is being practiced in our country." The Peratrovich's December 1941 letter to the governor coincided with the recent attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. In the present emergency our Native boys are being called upon to defend our beloved country, just as the White boys. Governor Gruening agreed Alaska need to change and in 1943, he supported an antidiscrimination bill in the Territorial Legislature. It failed, with a tie vote of 8-8 in the House. The Peratrovich's amped up their efforts, driving all across Alaska campaigning for equal rights and convincing Natives to run for seats in the legislature.
Elizabeth Peratrovich, circa 1943. When the Alaska legislature convened in February 1945, change was in the air. Congress
had increased the size of the Alaska Territory and citizens had elected two Natives to represent them in Juneau. Alaska's house quickly approved a bill, voting 19-5 for equal right for Native people. The antidiscrimination law moved to the senate, where most thought it would also pass. Before the vote, spectators filled the gallery and spilled into the hallway. Senators rose from their seats to explain why the No Natives Allowed policy should stand. Senator Frank Whaley did not want to sit next to a native in a theater because, he said, he they smelled. Senator E.B. Collens explained his reasoning against the bill: "The Eskimos are proud of their origins and are
aware that harm comes to them from mixing with whites. It is the mixed, who is not accepted by either race, that causes the trouble. I believe in racial pride and do not think this bill will do, other than arouse bitterness." Senator Allen Shattuck from Juneau didn't mince words: "Far from being brought closer together, which will result from this bill, the races
should be kept further apart. Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites with five thousand years of recorded history behind us?” Elizabeth sat listening, her tenacious energy plying her knitting needles as she waited for her chance to speak. She'd spent hours deciding on the right words to say. Would they have any effect? Looking at her daughter, she envisioned the
future she wanted.
Elizabeth Peratrovich and her daughter Lorretta.
When the formal testimony ended, Elizabeth put down her knitting and went to the podium and went off script. "I would
not have expected," she said. "That I, who am barely out of savagery would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights." Elizabeth continued with her planned remarks, explaining how Native people faced discrimination daily, how it diminished the quality of their lives, education and health and reduced opportunities for employment and housing. Senator Shattuck maybe thought to have the last word, questioning Elizabeth. Would the proposed bill eradicate discrimination? She replied: "So, laws against larceny and even murder prevent these crimes? No law will eliminate crimes but at least you legislators can assert to the world that you recognize the evil of the present situation and speak your intent to help us overcome discrimination." The gallery gave a “wild burst of applause,” Gruening wrote later. The 1945 Anti-Discrimination Act passed, 11-5.
Governor Gruening signs the 1945 antidiscrimination act, Elizabeth Peratrovich on his
left, and Roy Peratrovich on the far right.
A mural in downtown Juneau created in 2021 by Crystal Kaakeeyáa Worl, a Tlingit and Athabascan artist, celebrates
Elizabeth Peratrovich. In the background of the iconic, yet modern painting is Northwest Coast formline designs of a sockeye salmon and raven from Peratrovich’s clan crest. “And then there’s also the salmon eggs in the water beneath her,” Worl said. “That’s the next generation and looking out for the next generation.” The Alaska
Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood, organizations in which Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich held leadership roles in the 1940s, continue to advance Alaska Native rights today. Together they're the oldest known Indigenous civil rights organization in the world.
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