Remembering civil rights leader, Tlingit activist Elizabeth Peratrovich [Video]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Elizabeth Peratrovich, Alaska Native and civil rights activist is recognized yearly on Feb. 16 for her campaign against discrimination and lobbying for Alaska’s 1945 anti-discrimination bill.

Peratrovich’s life was dedicated to civil rights. She wrote her representatives to demand the removal of “whites only” signs that prohibited Alaska Natives from entering certain establishments in their homeland of Alaska.

Peratrovich was a member of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, her husband Roy Peratrovich a member of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, they stood together to rally indigenous communities together in a movement that impacted the state.

In 1945, Peratrovich gave a two-hour-long testimony to the Senate, ultimately resulting in the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, putting an end to Jim Crow laws in Alaska decades before the signing of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On Sunday, communities across Alaska celebrated the works of Peratrovich. Paulette Moreno, Executive …