The Tlingit & Haida Community Council and Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp No. 1 are co-hosting an event to commemorate Elizabeth Peratrovich Day on Friday, Feb. 16, at the Nolan Center.
It’s been several years since a communitywide event was held in Wrangell to honor the Tlingit civil rights advocate who successfully pushed for the nation’s first anti-discrimination law in Alaska in 1945.
Though events were held at the schools in past years, Sandy Churchill, ANS Camp president, said she has been wanting to do more to honor and remember the late civil rights activist.
“I hope there’s a good turnout,” she said.
The event is open to the public.
The evening will start with a 5 p.m. potluck. “Just bring whatever,” Churchill said. The ANS Camp will provide frybread tacos.
Several speakers will talk about the history of Elizabeth Peratrovich and the struggles for Alaska Natives to win their rights. The speakers will be on Zoom, as part of a statewide presentation organized by the Alaska Native Sisterhood Grand Camp.
A silent auction will follow the speakers to raise money to send Wrangell youth to attend the Sealaska Heritage Institute’s biennial Celebration, scheduled for June 5-8 in Juneau to honor and celebrate Southeast Alaska Native culture.
“We’ll have a lot of homemade gifts,” including jewelry and quilts, Churchill said. “I’m also hoping we’ll collect a few gift certificates from local businesses” for the fundraising auction.
Anyone who wants to donate for the auction can call Churchill at 907-305-0888 or Laura Larsen at 907-660-7118.
The evening will end with traditional Native dances.
“We’ll probably put out the blankets,” to collect money for children to attend Celebration, Churchill said.
As president of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, Peratrovich traveled around Alaska, urging residents to support a territorial anti-discrimination bill that would put an end to government-sanctioned segregation. She was born in Petersburg in 1911 and lived in Sitka, Klawock, Ketchikan and Juneau, where her family had moved so that they could be more involved in territorial politics.
In 1943, an anti-discrimination bill was introduced to the all-white territorial Legislature but failed on a tie vote.
It was reintroduced in 1945. Sen. Allen Shattuck contended that the bill would “aggravate rather than allay” racial conflict, according to territorial Gov. Ernest Gruening’s autobiography. Shattuck asked his colleagues: “Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind us?”
Peratrovich responded in her public testimony: “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 Anti-Discrimination Act passed after her testimony.
Peratrovich died of breast cancer at age 47 on Dec. 1, 1958. The state Legislature in 1988 designated Elizabeth Peratrovich Day.
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