Google today dedicates a beautiful scribble to Elizabeth Peratrovich, an American civil rights activist and member of the Tlingit Nation who campaigned for equality for Native Alaskans.
Elizabeth Peratrovich was born on July 4, 1911 in Petersburg, Alaska, and was a member of the Lukaax̱.ádi clan in the Raven Unit of the Tlingit Nation. She was instrumental in the passage of the first anti-discrimination law in the United States in 1945.
Elizabeth Peratrovich was an orphan at a young age. Andrew and Mary Wanamaker adopted her. She graduated from Ketchikan High School and then attended Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka and the Western College of Education in Bellingham, Washington (now part of Western Washington University).
Elizabeth Peratrovich was married to Roy Peratrovich, who was also Tlingit and of Serbian descent. With a passion for teaching, Peratrovich attended college in Bellingham, Washington. There she met Roy Peratrovich, who was a student at the same school. They married and moved to Klawock, Alaska, where her role in local politics and Elizabeth Peratrovich’s talent for leadership fueled her strong commitment to the Alaska Native Sisterhood, one of the oldest civil rights groups in the world, and eventually led to her appointment to the organization Grand President.
Elizabeth Peratrovich and her husband tried to buy a house in their new town, but they were turned down when the sellers saw they were from Alaska. Cases like this were unfortunately common among Alaska’s indigenous peoples and continued to motivate Elizabeth Peratrovich to take action in the name of systemic change. They petitioned the Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening to prohibit the public places from displaying the “No dogs or natives allowed” signs that were common in Alaska at this time.
The anti-discrimination law was proposed by the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood, but the first attempt to pass this law failed in 1943. In 1945, however, Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovich became presidents of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and the Alaska Native Sisterhood campaigned for the Territory’s lawmakers and Alaska Governor Earnest Gruening to get the law passed.
Elizabeth Peratrovich died on December 1, 1958 at the age of 47. She suffered badly from breast cancer. She is buried with her husband Roy in Evergreen Cemetery in Juneau, Alaska. Her son Roy Peratrovich Jr. became a well-known civil engineer in Alaska. He designed the Brotherhood Bridge in Juneau, which runs the Glacier Highway over the Mendenhall River.
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