By Sentinel Staff
Sitka will celebrate Elizabeth Peratrovich Day Thursday, Feb. 16, with a parade followed by a celebration at the ANB Founders Hall.
The commemoration honoring the Tlingit civil rights leader Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich begins with a 2 p.m. parade, from the Crescent Harbor shelter to the ANB Founders Hall. (Line-up is at 1:30 p.m.) Civil rights groups and individuals are welcome to march in solidarity in the parade. For further information call Karen at 907 747-7803.
After the parade, a gathering will be held at the ANB Founders Hall, with comments, dancing, and coffee and cake.
Alaska Native dance groups, both local and from around the state, will perform, in honor of Peratrovich’s contribution to equal rights for Alaska Native peoples. The groups include Mt. Edgecumbe High School’s Athabaskan, Yupik, Inupiaq, St. Lawrence Island, Supiaq and Unangan groups; and local dance groups Sheet’ka Kwaan, Gajaa Heen and Noow Tlein.
Elizabeth Peratrovich Day has been observed since 1988 to commemorate the Feb. 16, 1945, signing of the Anti-Discrimination Act. Peratrovich’s powerful speech before the Legislature bout inequality is credited as a turning point in the debate leading to the act’s passage. At the invitation of Gov. Ernest Gruening, she was a witness at the signing.
Passed 19 years before the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Alaska law ensured “full and equal accommodations, facilities and privileges to all citizens in places of public accommodation.”
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.
Sitka’s ANB Camp 1 and ANS Camp 4 have organized the Sitka commemoration.
