How One Woman Confronted Discrimination in 1940s Alaska
Elizabeth Peratrovich was a tireless civil rights activist
In 1945 Alaska, it was seen as perfectly acceptable that a senator (Allen Shattuck, a senator of the territory) could stand up in a debate over a proposed law and say the following, in reference to members of Alaska Natives:
“Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites, with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind us?”
Thank goodness a member of the Alaskan Tlingit nation, a woman named Elizabeth Peratrovich, was there to reply to Senator Allen Shattuck’s crude question:
“I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind them, of our Bill of Rights.”
When the debate was over the Senate passed the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945 by a vote of 11–5.
Elizabeth Jean Wanamaker was born on July 4, 1911, in Petersburg, Alaska. She was born into a Tlingit family and given the name Kaaxgal.aat. According to her obituary (which ran in The New York Times in 2019, as part of their “Overlooked” obituary series), her parents “left her in the care of the Salvation Army.” She was adopted by Mary and Andrew Wanamaker, who worked as Presbyterian missionaries.
She met her future husband, Roy Peratrovich, when they both attended high school in Ketchikan. They married in 1931, and although they had both attended college courses in Bellingham, Washington, they eventually settled in Klawock, Alaska, where Roy worked in a cannery and Elizabeth raised their children and worked at home.
Both Elizabeth and Roy were heavily involved in their community of Klawock, as well as their Native community. Roy worked as a policeman and a city judge and even served as the mayor of Klawock. He became the Grand President of the Alaska Native Brotherhood in 1941 — the same year Elizabeth became Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood.
They worked, they volunteered, they raised a family…and yet still, many places they went in Alaska, they faced signs like “No Natives Allowed” and “No Dogs, No Natives.”
Elizabeth and her husband had had enough of this discrimination, particularly after they moved to Juneau and were denied the opportunity to purchase a home because its owner would not sell to Alaska Natives. They decided, in their official capacities as presidents of the ANB and ANS, to write a letter to Ernest Gruening, governor of the Alaska Territory (Alaska did not officially become a state until 1959).
And what a letter. In it, the couple points out that Alaska Natives pay all the same taxes as do their White counterparts, and they also point out another way in which Alaska Natives were paying the same price of citizenship:
“In the present emergency our Native boys are being called upon to defend our beloved country, just as the White boys. There is no distinction being made there, but yet when we try to patronize some business establishments we are told in most cases that Natives are not allowed.
The proprietor of ‘Douglas Inn’ does not seem to realize that our Native boys are just as willing as the White boys to lay down their lives to protect the freedom that he enjoys. Instead he shows his appreciation by having a ‘No Natives Allowed’ on his door.”
They concluded the letter by “asking that you use your influence to eliminate this discrimination, not only in Juneau or Douglas, but in the whole Territory.”
Ernest Gruening agreed with them. In 1943, he attempted to help move an anti-discrimination bill through the Alaska Territorial Legislature. It failed to pass, but Elizabeth and Roy refused to give up.
Their quest to gain civil rights did not come without sacrifices.
After the first bill failed in 1943, Elizabeth and Roy traveled across Alaska, drumming up support for the legislation and, more crucially, helping to convince other Alaska Natives to run for (and win) political office. Their travels and work did not come without sacrifices; at one point they had to temporarily leave their children in an orphanage because of the pace of their travels.
When the bill came back before the Alaska Territorial Legislature in 1945, there were newly elected Native senators there to help its passage. But the debate was still arduous, and it was during that debate that Senator Shattuck would refer to Alaska Natives as “barely out of savagery.” During the public comment period, Elizabeth Peratrovich stood up to respond, and, when further asked by the Alaskan Senate politicians if she really believed the bill would stop discrimination, she responded:
“Do your laws against larceny and even murder prevent those crimes? No law will eliminate crimes but at least you as 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 bill passed in the Alaskan Senate, and territorial Governor Gruening signed it into law on Feb. 16, 1945.
Tragically, Elizabeth Peratrovich died, in 1958, at the age of 47, from breast cancer. Although she did not live long enough to see the passage of many other landmark pieces of civil rights legislation, and her contribution to history was not given the attention it deserved for many years, she eventually did gain recognition for her work.
In 1988, the Alaska State Legislature established February 16th as “Annual Elizabeth Peratrovich Day,” and in February of 2020, the U.S. Mint released a $1 coin bearing her likeness and honoring her achievements.
Elizabeth Peratrovich was always a woman who knew the power of words, and how they needed to be turned into action. In her high school yearbook, her senior motto was “By the words of thy mouth will I judge thee.”
Sources
“Alaska,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska.
“Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Equal_Rights_Act_of_1945.
Baxter, Adelyn. “Coin Commemorating Alaska Native Civil Rights Leader Elizabeth Peratrovich Released,” Alaska Public Media, 13 February 2020, https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/13/coin-commemorating-alaska-native-civil-rights-leader-elizabeth-peratrovich-released/.
Gruening Letter, at Alaskool.org, http://www.alaskool.org/projects/native_gov/recollections/peratrovich/Gruening_Letter.htm.
Kiffer, Dave. “Alaska Celebrates Civil Rights Pioneer,” Sit News, 18 February 2008. http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/Peratrovich/021808_e_peratrovich.html.
Mason, James. “Elizabeth Peratrovich, Bringing Light To All People,” 4 July 2011. http://www.goldbeltheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Elizabeth-Peratrovich-Article.pdf.
“Remembering Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich,” Congressional Record Volume 160, number 31, 25 February 2014. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2014-02-25/html/CREC-2014-02-25-pt1-PgS1045.htm.
“Remembering Elizabeth Peratrovich: Alaska’s Civil Rights Legacy,” NEA Alaska, https://www.neaalaska.org/remembering-elizabeth-peratrovich-alaskas-civil-rights-legacy/.
Vaughan, Carson. “Overlooked No More: Elizabeth Peratrovich, Rights Advocate for Alaska Natives,” New York Times, 20 March 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/obituaries/elizabeth-peratrovich-overlooked.html
Weingroff, Richard F. “Who Is Elizabeth Peratrovich? The Story Behind the Country’s First Anti-Discrimination Law,” in the U.S. Department of Transportation Highway History. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/peratrovich.cfm.
