Daily Sitka Sentinel

Elizabeth Peratrovich $1 Coin Now Available

By Sentinel Staff
    The Elizabeth Peratrovich commemorative $1 coin was released Wednesday, just in time for Sunday’s 75th anniversary of the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945.
    The $1 gold-colored coin depicts Native civil rights advocate Peratrovich, paired with a raven, her moiety, in Tlingit form line style.
    The “heads” side of the coin features Sacajawea, the Lemhi-Shoshone guide of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803-06). The coin first appeared in 2000.
    Peratrovich was a ground-breaking activist for Indigenous Peoples’ rights in Alaska. She lived in Petersburg, Klawock, Ketchikan and Sitka, where she attended Sheldon Jackson School.
    The U.S. Mint website stated that the coin is dedicated to the “first anti-discrimination law in the United States, prohibiting discrimination in access to public accommodations, (which) was passed in the Alaskan territorial government in 1945. Elizabeth Peratrovich (Tlingit nation), through her advocacy for Alaskan Natives with her husband Roy and an impassioned speech in the Alaskan Senate in support of the law, is widely credited with getting it passed.”

Alaska Native Sisterhood Grand Camp President Paulette Moreno, left, and Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand Camp President Heather Gurko stand in front of an illustration of the Elizabeth Peratrovich one-dollar coin. (Photo provided to the Sentinel)

    While the coins are minted in Denver and Philadelphia, they’re for sale for now only at catalogue.usmint.gov. A roll of 25 coins costs $34.50. Shipping costs $4.95, and the Mint tells purchasers to expect their coins within two weeks.
    The New York Times cited a letter from Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich to Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening in 1941 as one of the impetuses for the Anti-Discrimination law.
    “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,” the Peratroviches wrote, after seeing a “No Natives allowed” sign posted at a hotel. The United States had recently entered the Second World War following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 7, 1941, and U.S. Congress’ declaration of war, Dec. 8.
    For four years, said the New York Times, Elizabeth Peratrovich struggled to push an anti-discrimination bill into law.
    Her Feb. 5, 1945, speech before the Alaska Legislature was a tipping point.
    In Gruening’s 1973 autobiography “Many Battles,” he related a sharp exchange between a legislator and Peratrovich.
    Replying to a comment from a white legislator who described her as “barely out of savagery,” Peratrovich said “I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind the gentlemen with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights.”
    The bill passed 11-5, and Gov. Gruening signed it into law with Peratrovich standing at his right shoulder, Feb. 16, 1945.
    She died in 1958 of cancer, and is buried in Juneau.