Students helped make their own regalia for Elizabeth Peratrovich Day.
(Berett Wilber)

February 16 marks more than seventy years since the territory of Alaska passed the Non-Discrimination Act of 1945.

In Haines, the celebration included song, dance, and praise for one of Alaska’s best-known civil rights leaders: Elizabeth Peratrovich.


Haines community members crowded into the school gym to pay their respects to an Alaska civil rights icon: February 16 is Elizabeth Peratrovich Day.

After two weeks of practicing, the third, fourth, and fifth graders sang and danced into the gym to the beat of a Tlingit drum, led by one of their classmates.

Student Wei Haa prepares to lead his classmates into the Haines gymnasium. (Berett Wilber)

“My Tlingit name is Wei haa. We are doing this dance because this is what an elder said before his last days.”

Stitch Phillips is a member of the Deishú Dancers, who helped the students learn “Tsu Heidei,” a song written by Tlingit elder George Davis in the 1980s.

“It’s very important. Translates to, once again we’ll open this container of wisdom left to us by our ancestors. That’s where you get “Tsu Heidei Shugaxtutaan.”

Philips drummed for the performance, one of many adult volunteers who helped arrange the celebration. Others made sure each student had regalia to wear: a felt vest, and a pearl-button headband. Wayne Price came up with a back design, featuring both Raven and Eagle, that students sewed onto the vests themselves.

The whole school, K through twelve, gathered to watch the performance. Afterwards, Marilyn Wilson, the Vice President of Haines’ chapter of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, gave a short speech.

“I want to thank Elizabeth Peratrovich for saying that I can go into the restaurants, I can be part of the community, I can be in the Legislature. So, dream big,” she said. “You can make a difference in your community also.”

And for those who struggle to remember precisely what it is Elizabeth Peratrovich did, about forty kindergarteners and first graders were there to lend a hand — through song.

“Elizabeth Peratrovich was a Native leader,” they sang. “Alaska passed a law, Alaska passed a law, Alaska passed a law, to end discrimination.”

The law Alaska passed, which Peratrovich worked for, was the territory’s 1945 Anti-Discrimination Act. Motivated by racist treatment of Alaska Natives, it criminalized segregation and race discrimination twenty years before the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act.

The Haines Drama Debate Team re-enacted an excerpt of the Alaska Senate’s floor debate on the bill. Petratrovich, the Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood at just 34, spoke from the gallery in response to what she heard on the floor.

 

Marilyn Wilson, the Vice President of Haines’ chapter of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, speaks to students and community members. (Berett Wilber).

“I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentleman with 5000 years of recorded civilization behind them of our bill of rights.”

 

“Do you think this proposed bill will stop discrimination?” one “Senator” asked.

“Do your laws against robbery and even murder prevent those crimes?” Peratrovich said. “No laws will do away with crimes, but at least you, as legislators, can say to the world that you recognize how bad it is and speak your plan to stop discrimination.”

 

Wilson says it’s that second part of Peratrovich’s speech that makes recognizing her so valuable now.

“Elizabeth Peratrovich made a big impact [with] the words she said. It really swayed the vote. So, I think when kids look at things that they’re afraid to talk, or afraid to ask questions. I think this kind of teaches them — to speak out.”

For Wilson, having the celebration in a school, where Native and white students were once segregated, and Tlingit language and dance forbidden, it’s especially meaningful.

“I’m just excited when I see all the children, and the whole school sitting there. I think this is a long time coming.”