By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Sitkans will gather Wednesday to celebrate the legacy of Tlingit civil rights advocate Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich in a series of events in town and online.
Elizabeth Peratrovich Day has been observed since 1988 to commemorate the Feb. 16, 1945, passage of the Anti-discrimination Act by the Alaska Territorial Legislature.
Peratrovich made a speech before the 1945 Legislature that is hailed as a turning point in the debate leading up to passage of the measure.
Today, 77 years since the law’s enactment, civil rights require vigilance, said Alaska Native Sisterhood past grand president Paulette Moreno.
Elizabeth Peratrovich was one of the witnesses to the signing of the 1945 state anti-discrimination law. Pictured watching Gov. Ernest Gruening sign the bill are, from left, O. D. Cochran, Elizabeth Peratrovich, Edward Anderson, Norman Walker, and Roy Peratrovich. (Photo by Amy Lou Blood, from Alaska State Library archives)
“Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich Day, February 16, means an opportunity to cultivate creative recognition for the passage of the Anti-discrimination Act of 1945 as advised by Peratrovich,” Moreno said. “It also means that we can follow through on her counsel, that even though a law is passed, the intent of the law will need constant vigilance.”
Moreno is now a member of the ANS executive committee.
Passed 19 years prior to the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 1945 Alaska law ensured “full and equal accommodations, facilities and privileges to all citizens in places of public accommodation.”
For Moreno, the holiday “is an opportunity to pause and see where we are, as a world, as a nation, as a state, as a community or a village. It is an opportunity to celebrate a Tlingit Native civil rights leader.”
Elizabeth and her husband Roy Peratrovich were grand presidents of the Alaska Native Sisterhood and Alaska Native Brotherhood respectively when the landmark civil rights legislation was passed.
“So it’s a reminder to support or serve in the local ANB and ANS camps,” Moreno said in an interview with the Sentinel. “It’s a call to action to use our voices in a courageous manner and have fair and equal citizenship as neighbors, and to honor the First People of this land.”
A parade to honor Elizabeth Peratrovich will begin at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Crescent Harbor shelter and proceed up Lincoln Street and turn onto Katlian to the ANB Founders Hall, where there will be an open-microphone event.
“Our theme is ‘Standing Our Ground,’ so I’m looking forward to hearing the unheard voices and what they are passionate about standing up for today,” Moreno said.
ANS Camp 4 secretary Karen Lucas said she looks forward to the chance to celebrate the civil rights icon.
Elizabeth Peratrovich “essentially paved the way for human rights, basic human rights that we’re all equal, we’re all created equal,” Lucas said. “Mostly it’s to celebrate her and to honor her, but I’m also looking forward to people coming together at the ANB. We’re going to end the parade at the hall because it looks like the weather is going to be lousy on Wednesday,” Lucas said Monday. The National Weather Service forecast is for heavy rain.
The holiday is a chance to celebrate Peratrovich’s stand for human rights, Lucas said.
“Most of all, her keen sense of natural human rights that we’re born with and are sewn into the fabric of our humanity: the right to raise your children, the right to work and own property, to provide for your family, just real basic stuff,” she said. “And so when she was being marginalized as an Alaska Native and not allowed to go to the movie theater or ride the bus or work, she stood up and she presented our humanity to the Territorial Legislature and gained equal rights for all Alaskans.”
ANB Camp 1 President Pete Karras said he believes Peratrovich continues to be a role model.
“I would like that people put some thought into how they treat other people, because that’s what the bottom line of her whole standing up was for – treat each other like humans, not like we’re different than you are,” Karras said.
Peratrovich’s legacy of civil rights advocacy, he added, should be universal.
“I would hope that they interpret it as the starting of civil rights for all people, actually, when you think about it. I think the way that my pastor put it here last year when he was speaking, he said, ‘The world has one race, the human race.’” Karras said.
This year, he hopes the holiday sparks a new interest in membership in ANB and ANS.
“What I’d like to do, too, is maybe get a membership drive, and the name kind of throws people off – Alaska Native Brotherhood. Anybody can be involved, you don’t have to be Native to be a brother, it was just started by us,” he said.
He highlighted ANB’s charitable work.
“We serve the community, we have the dinner at Thanksgiving and Christmas and we help individuals out, (such) as people that have had their houses catch fire. Just recently we donated some money to a little kid that’s getting a liver transplant at seven-years-old,” he said.
The open-mic event following the parade is new this year. Lucas said it will be a good chance to exercise the freedoms of assembly and of speech.
“We’re going to set up our open mic,” Lucas said. “We’re going to honor her first and then we’re going to open it up to any individual or human or civil rights group to speak about their cause and I’m pretty excited about that, that we’re going to be exercising not only our freedom of peaceable assembly... and also that we’re exercising our freedom of speech.”
An online event is also scheduled 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday on Facebook.
On the Facebook event, Moreno said, “We’re going to have a welcoming and introductions and we’re going to honor Elizabeth Wanamaker by our theme… which is ‘Empowering Female Leaders into the Future,’ so we are going to highlight the passage of the Anti-discrimination Act and speak to how we celebrate that by advocacy for today’s issues.” The virtual event can be found at www.tinyurl.com/22EPDayVirtualCelebration.
For Moreno, Elizabeth Peratrovich Day is an opportunity for unity.
“Through pandemics and worldwide hardships, we may have our different views, (but) at the end of the day it’s the work within our own families and homes that will keep us safe and united,” she said. “So extend that philosophy to your communities… It’s more important than ever that we come together and support each other.”
