Alaskan History
On February 6, 1988, the Alaska Legislature established February 16th (the day in 1945 when the Anti-Discrimination Act was signed) as "Elizabeth Peratrovich Day," in order to memorialize the contributions of Peratrovich "for her courageous, unceasing efforts to eliminate discrimination and bring about equal rights in Alaska"
Elizabeth Peratrovich, Tlinget Activist Elizabeth Peratrovich was born on Independence Day, July 4, 1911, in Petersburg, in the Panhandle region of the District of Alaska. She was the daughter of a Native woman named Edith Tagcook Paul and her mother’s Irish brother-in-law, William Paddock. The unmarried mother traveled to Sitka to have her baby, who was then left in care of the Salvation Army. The baby was adopted by a Tlingit couple, Presbyterian minister Andrew Wanamaker and his wife Jean, a famed basketweaver. Wanamaker was an honorary charter member of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, founded in 1912, at a time when Alaska Natives were not U.S. citizens, could not own title to land and could not send their children to local schools. The aim of the group was citizenship and equality, and for the first half of the 20th century the Alaska Native Brotherhood was the only such group representing Alaska Natives. The Wanamaker family lived in Sitka until Elizabeth was 10 years old, when they moved to Klawock, a Native village on Prince of Wales Island, about 60 miles west of Ketchikan. She learned to speak both Tlingit and English, graduating from the public high school in Ketchikan. Klawock was the hometown of Roy Peratrovich, the son a Tlingit Indian woman and a man of Yugoslav descent. Roy worked as a trapper, fisherman, and boat captain, and in 1931 he and Elizabeth were married and returned to Klawock, where Roy worked as a policeman, postmaster, and the village mayor for four terms, while Elizabeth raised their three children, Roy Jr., Frank Allen and Loretta Marie. In 1940 Roy was elected Grand President of the Alaska
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