In February 1945, a Tlingit woman named Elizabeth Peratrovich spoke to the Alaska territorial Senate. Two weeks later, Alaska had the first anti-discrimination law in the United States. That was nineteen years before the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In Juneau, Alaska, in the 1940s, signs hung in shop windows. They read: “No Natives Allowed.”
Some read “No Dogs, No Natives.” Hotels turned Native guests away. Theatres seated them apart from everyone else. Native children were kept out of the town school, until one mother argued them back in.
That mother was Elizabeth Peratrovich. She was Tlingit, of the Raven moiety, Lukaax.ádi clan.
With her husband Roy, she had moved to Juneau in the early 1940s. They tried to rent a house there, and were turned away because of who they were.
By 1945, Elizabeth was Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood. Roy led the Alaska Native Brotherhood. For years the two of them had asked the territorial legislature for a law.
The Gallery
On February 5, 1945, the territorial Senate took up that law.
Elizabeth sat in the public gallery above the chamber. The debate went on for hours. She listened to all of it, and she knitted.
One senator, Allen Shattuck of Juneau, stood up. The races should be kept further apart, he said, not brought closer together. Then he asked who these people were, barely out of savagery, that they wanted to sit beside white people.
When the public was invited to speak, Elizabeth put down her knitting. Then she walked to the front of the chamber.
“I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights.”
She did not talk about principles. Instead she described what was actually happening.
Her own children. Families who could not find anywhere to live. People refused a room in the town where they had always lived.
A senator asked her whether she really believed a law could put an end to prejudice.
“Do your laws against larceny and even murder prevent those crimes?”
Nobody in that room was proposing to repeal those laws.
The Vote
Up in the gallery, people erupted.
The Senate passed the bill, eleven votes to five. Two weeks earlier, on February 1, the House had already passed it nineteen votes to five.
On February 16, 1945, Governor Ernest Gruening signed House Bill 14 into law. It was the first anti-discrimination act anywhere in the United States.
That law had teeth. Refusing someone service because of their race could now mean thirty days in jail and a fine of 250 dollars.
Nineteen more years would pass before the federal Civil Rights Act was signed.
Alaska now marks February 16 as Elizabeth Peratrovich Day. In 2020, her portrait was placed on the United States one-dollar coin.
Quick Answers
Who was Elizabeth Peratrovich?
A Tlingit civil rights leader who lived from 1911 to 1958. She belonged to the Lukaax.ádi clan of the Raven moiety, and served as Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood.
What did she do?
On February 5, 1945, she spoke to the Alaska territorial Senate. Her testimony is credited with winning passage of the Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act.
When did the law pass?
Governor Ernest Gruening signed it on February 16, 1945 — nineteen years before the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Was it really the first law of its kind in the country?
Yes. Alaska was still a territory at the time, and no state or territory had passed anything equivalent before it.
How is she remembered today?
February 16 is Elizabeth Peratrovich Day in Alaska. Her portrait also appears on the 2020 United States one-dollar coin.
Sources
- Library of Congress, In Custodia Legis — Elizabeth Peratrovich, Civil and Voting Rights Activist
- Alaska State Archives — Anti-discrimination Act of 1945
- US Federal Highway Administration — Who Is Elizabeth Peratrovich?
- University of Alaska — UA Journey: Elizabeth Peratrovich