Elizabeth Peratrovich

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.

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Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

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Speaker 2: Over the years, we have gotten some listener requests for an episode on Elizabeth Paratrovitch, who's most well known for her work to pass Alaska's Anti Discrimination Act of nineteen forty five that was passed when Alaska was US territory. So I've had her on my short list for an episode for quite a while, and then this year, on Elizabeth Paratrovitch Day, which is February sixteenth, I felt like I saw a lot more people talking about her than in previous years, including people who are not in Alaska, and she's just she's sort of stayed on my mind since then. That means that this episode is not timely at all if you're thinking about it in terms of Elizabeth Paratrovitch Day. But her story also has more to it than the Alaska Anti Discrimination Act that she's most associated with. That act had some similarities to the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four, which became law almost twenty years later.

00:01:13
Speaker 1: So to start, we have to set the stage with some Alaska history, specifically in connection to the rights of Alaska Native peoples. In eighteen sixty seven, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for seven point two million dollars, or about two cents per acre of land. Article three of the purchase treaty read quote. The inhabitants of the ceded territory, according to their choice, reserving their natural allegiance, may return to Russia within three years. But if they should prefer to remain in the ceded territory, they, with the exception of uncivilized Native tribes, shall be admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States, and shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion. The uncivilized tribes will be subject to such laws and regulations as the United States may, from time to time adopt in regard to aboriginal tribes of that country.

00:02:18
Speaker 2: This had some similarities to other earlier treaties, such as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican American War. Under that treaty, Mexico ceded a significant amount of territory to the United States. The treaty gave Mexicans living in that territory a year to decide whether to stay there and become US citizens, or to move to territory that was still part of Mexico and retain their Mexican citizenship. Neither the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo nor the Alaska Purchase Treaty included indigenous people. During these negotiations, neither of them granted citizenship to indigenous people, although the Alaska Purchase Treaty did leave some room for interpretation, considering that the United States was also referring to the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole nations as civilized.

00:03:12
Speaker 1: When the United States signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in eighteen forty eight, it was defining its relationships to indigenous nations by signing treaties with them. But in eighteen seventy one, four years after the Alaska Purchase, Congress enacted a law forbidding the United States from entering into new treaties with indigenous nations. Consequently, no treaties were signed with the Native peoples of Alaska, so we are not suggesting that having a treaty meant a good relationship between indigenous peoples and the United States. A lot of these treaties followed warfare and other violence, so indigenous nations often signed them under duress, like at best, their terms were generally skewed in favor of the United States, and even then, the US didn't necessarily enforce their provisions, like if non indigenous people started settling on what was supposed to be indigenous land, the federal government often did not do much to stop it. The US government.

00:04:14
Speaker 2: Also disregarded or outright broke treaties with indigenous peoples at numerous points, but by signing a treaty, the United States was recognizing an indigenous tribe or nation as a sovereign entity. Having no treaty meant that, under the terms of the Alaska Purchase, native communities were quote subject to such laws and regulations as the United States may adopt in regard to aboriginal tribes of that country, but without the treaty framework that a lot of those laws rested on, and without a recognition of Alaska Native peoples or villages as sovereign nations. The impacts of this could really be a whole podcast series, And of course, a lot of the Native peoples of Alaska did not think that Alaska had been Russia's to sell in the first place. But all of this meant that Alaska Native communities were often viewed and treated differently from indigenous peoples in the contiguous United States. For example, the Indian Reorganization Act of nineteen thirty four, which was also called the Indian New Deal, was an effort to address some of the harms of earlier federal Indian policy and to encourage autonomy and tribal sovereignty for Native peoples. This act did not fully apply to Alaska Native communities until Congress passed an additional law in nineteen thirty six. The combination of the Alaska purchased treaty terms and the lack of other treaty rights also led to enormous issues with land rights and access to natural resources. The US did not really start trying to resolve a lot of these issues until the Alaska Native Claimed Settlement Act of nineteen seventy one. In terms of voting rights in the US, only citizens are allowed to vote in federal elections, although non citizens can vote in other elections in some places. After the US purchased Alaska, it was essentially controlled by the military, so at first there were no federal elections. The Organic Act of eighteen eighty four, which established a basic civil government for the District of Alaska, allowed only municipal elections and gave Alaska no representation in Congress. At various points, people in Alaska arranged their own elections anyway, choosing delegates to send to Washington, d c. So these elections were not legally recognized, and the delegates who went to Washington were also not recognized. Even though only US citizens can vote in federal elections and Alaska Natives were generally not being considered citizens, there were Alaska Natives who voted in these elections. That language about so called uncivilized tribes had led to questions about whether Native people who assimilated with white society were citizens and had the right to vote. A lot of communities in Alaska were also predominantly or overwhelmingly Native, so anybody who was working the election was probably Native and might allow other Native people to vote. And in these earliest elections things were just not necessarily being tightly regulated. I would say a lot of things at this point were not being very tightly regulated. In Alaska.

00:07:38
Speaker 1: A nineteen zero four lag gave all adult citizens in Alaska the right to vote in school board elections, regardless of gender. A second organic Act was passed in nineteen twelve, which created a legislature for Alaska Territory with four districts that each had two senators and four representatives. One of this legislature's first actions was to give women in Alaska the right to vote. As was the.

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Speaker 2: Case with a lot of other women's suffrage legislation in the US, this generally applied to white women, not to anybody else, but there were still Alaska Natives who voted, and by this point there were also Alaska Natives who were being recognized definitively as citizens of the United States. In nineteen oh four, US District Court Judge James Wickersham ruled the Allotment Act of eighteen eighty seven, also called the Dawes Act, applied to Alaska Natives. Today, the Dawes Act is more associated with breaking up reservation land, but section six of the Act specified that an indigenous person who lived apart from an indigenous tribe and quote adopted the habits of civilized life was a US citizen, so under Wickersham's ruling, this applied to Alaska Natives who assimilated with white society. By nineteen fifteen, the Territorial government of Alaska codified this idea into law. Any Indigenous person born in Alaska was a US citizen if they quote severed all tribal relationship and adopted the habits of a civilized life. To claim citizenship, they had to apply pass an examination be vouched for by five white citizens who had lived in Alaska for at least a year and knew the applicant and taken oath renouncing their tribal customs and relationships. This was during the period in which federal Indian policy was focused on allotment and assimilation, and this law is obviously rooted in the idea that Indigenous people should assimilate with white culture. This law passed with the support and advocacy of an intertribal organization called the Alaska Native Brotherhood or ANB, which had been established in nineteen twelve. From today's perspective, it might it seemed surprising that a native advocacy organization would have been supporting this law. Given its focus on assimilation and all of those hurdles Highy just read involving actually becoming a citizen, this has multiple layers of context. This was the era of the federal boarding school program that separated Indigenous children from their cultures and families to force them to assimilate with white culture. This was an act of cultural genocide on the part of the federal government, and even schools that were not officially connected to this program tended to have a similar focus on assimilation and Christianization. The founders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood had been educated in Presbyterian mission schools surrounded by this focus on assimilation. Some Indigenous leaders and activists fought back against this system from the beginning, but there were also those who thought that assimilation was the best way forward, or that it was something they just really had to do in order to survive, that they had no choice in the matter. In terms of the founders of the A and B, they were also savvy, aware, and politically organized. They recognized that under the US Constitution, some rights and protections applied to all people, but others are recognized for citizens only. The most straightforward way to attain all those rights was through citizenship. The authors of this bill, and at least some of its Native supporters, also thought that all these requirements with getting citizenship under it would be an incentive for people to improve themselves, whether or not they actually became citizens. As an organization, the Alaska Native Brotherhood was influenced by church societies. They were part of almost every Presbyterian congregation in Alaska. It had a constitution and by laws, and it ran its meetings using Roberts Rules of orca or. Its original nineteen twelve constitution does not seem to have survived, but its purpose, as stated in its nineteen seventeen constitution, was quote to assist and encourage the Native in his advancement from his native state to his place among the cultivated races of the world. To oppose, discourage, and overcome the narrow injustice of race prejudice, And to aid in the development of the territory of Alaska and in making it worthy of a place among the states of North America. A women's auxiliary, the Alaska Native Sisterhood, was established in the nineteen teens as well. Branches or camps of these organizations were established in numerous other communities across Alaska after the first ones were established in Sitka. Elizabeth Paratrovitch was a leader in the Alaska Native Sisterhood, which we'll get to in just a moment.

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Speaker 1: The first we will have a quick sponsor break.

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Speaker 2: In the nineteen twenties, the Alaska Native Brotherhood turned to the courts in its efforts to combat race prejudice and racism. This was in part due to the influence of William Paul Senior, who was pling it. Paul attended Sheldon Jackson Presbyterian Mission School in Sitka, followed by Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Banks Business College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington. He earned a law degree from LaSalle University in Pennsylvania and became Alaska's first Native attorney.

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Speaker 1: Paul's legal work included the case of his mother, Tilley, who was arrested after helping a relative to vote. Paul argued that she and the man that she helped were both citizens under the provisions of the Dawes Act, which predated the nineteen fifteen Alaska Native Citizenship Law. Both of them were acquitted. Paul also represented Irene Jones, who was barred from attending public school in Ketchikan, Alaska, under a nineteen oh five segregation law. He filed a discrimination lawsuit and he won. He also encouraged Alaska Natives to vote and helped Alaska Natives who were not literate cast their votes, including by making sample ballots and cardboard cutouts to show which spaces to mark. I will say that last part was controversial. In nineteen twenty four, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act into law. Under this law, all Indigenous people born in the territorial limits of the United States were citizens. We've talked about this law on the show before and some of the controversies around it, including that some of the Indigenous people who were affected by it didn't want US citizenship. They wanted the United States to respect their their tribal citizenship and their tribal sovereignty in Alaska territory. This law settled that whole question of whether Alaska Native people were US citizens. That got rid of all of the requirements to assimilate in order to be considered citizens. If they were born in Alaska, they were US citizens. There were non Indigenous people in Alaska, who found this threatening. Huge numbers of people had moved to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush, but Native people still made up about forty percent of the territory's population. In some communities, Alaska Natives were in the majority. As citizens, they had the right to vote, which made them potentially a major political power.

00:15:46
Speaker 2: So in nineteen twenty five, before most of those folks got to register to vote and exercise and right to vote, the Alaska Territorial Legislature passed a law requiring that people had to be able to read and write in English in order to vote. Debate around the law made it very clear that its purpose was to try to keep Alaska Native people from voting since a lot of them didn't know how to read. This sounds a lot like the literacy tests that were used to try to prevent black people from voting after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Because it was this law remained in place until the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five. There were other similarities between discrimination and racism Alaska Natives were facing and the Jim Crow segregation of other parts of the United States, and that finally brings us to Elizabeth Perretrovitch. She was born in Petersburg, Alaska, on July fourth, nineteen eleven. Her birth parents were not married, and her birth mother turned to the Salvation Army for help. They arranged an adoption, and Elizabeth Jean was adopted by Andrew and Jene Wannamaker. They lived in Sitka, not far away from where Elizabeth was born. She didn't know she had been adopted until she was an adult, and a minister contacted her to let her know that her birth mother had died. Andrew was a fisherman and a Presbyterian minister. He's described as both a lay minister and as a missionary. Jean was a basket weaver and was also part of Andrew's religious work. They spoke both cling It and English, and Elizabeth grew up speaking both languages and was raised in a largely traditional cling It way of life. Elizabeth also learned to speak and tell stories, both of which are culturally very important to the ling It.

00:17:37
Speaker 1: When she was ten, the family moved to the town of klook like Petersburg and Sitka. This is in southeastern Alaska, south of Juno in the Archipelago, to the west of British Columbia, Canada. As she got older, Elizabeth became increasingly aware of the ways in which Alaska Natives faced discrimination and racism, both through her own experiences and the examples her parents set for her. Andrew Wannamaker was one of the earliest members of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, and he was named an honorary founder.

00:18:11
Speaker 2: Elizabeth attended a boarding school for Native children, and eventually the family moved to Ketchikan, where she attended Ketchikan High School because it had been integrated through that earlier lawsuit. That is where she met Roy Paratrovitch, whose mother was Klinge and whose father was Yugoslavian.

00:18:28
Speaker 1: Elizabeth and Roy both wanted to become teachers, so after they graduated from high school in nineteen thirty one, they went to Bellingham Normal School in Washington, but they weren't able to finish their teaching program because of money. This was just a couple of years into the Great Depression. They returned to Alaska and they got married on December fifteenth, nineteen thirty one. They would go on to have three children together, Roy Junior, Frank, and Loretta Marie, who was known as Lori.

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Speaker 2: After getting married, married, Elizabeth and Roy moved back to Kluwok and Kluok coincidentally, maybe not really coincidentally, it became national news in nineteen thirty two after a local election in which six people who all had the last name Peratrovich, were all elected to public office. One of those was Roy, who was elected mayor and served for four terms. He also became president of his local Alaska Native Brotherhood camp, and Elizabeth was active in the Alaska Native Sisterhood For.

00:19:30
Speaker 1: About the next decade. Elizabeth and Roy raised their children and worked to help their community. In addition to serving as mayor, Roy was also a police officer, chief clerk, and postmaster. He did some of these jobs simultaneously, which is a lot, but Klok also had a population of about four hundred people, so there were a lot of people that were juggling multiple roles in a similar way. Over the years, they both became leaders in the anb and Ans. They did a variety of advocacy and community work, including delivering food to needy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

00:20:08
Speaker 2: By about nineteen forty, the Paratrovitches decided they could have a bigger impact if they moved to Juneo, which had a population of about six thousand people and was the capital of Alaska Territory, but they had trouble finding a place to live there. There were landlords who wouldn't rent to anybody who wasn't white. Properties that were for sale often had racially restrictive covenants that had the same effect. This mostly applied to Alaska Natives, but there were also black Alaskans and Filipinos who were facing similar circumstances, especially in Alaska's larger cities and towns.

00:20:45
Speaker 1: They also had to fight to get their children enrolled at a public school in Juneo. The details of this are not clear, but according to family accounts, there was a public school for white children only about a block from the home that they finally found. The nearest school for Native children was farther away, and Elizabeth thought they would get a better education at the school that was closer to their home. She convinced the superintendent to allow her children to enroll, and the chair of the school board resigned in protest. Roy Junior was the first Native child to be enrolled in Juno's public schools. Japan bombed the US naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December seventh, nineteen forty one, leading the United States to become directly involved in World War Two. At first, the US military didn't pay a lot of increased attention to Alaska, but a lot of Alaska Natives expressed interest in enlisting or tried to enlist. This would eventually lead to the establishment of the Alaska Territorial Guard in nineteen forty two, and more than sixty three hundred Alaska Natives from one hundred and seven different communitiesolunteered to serve. We aren't really getting into World War two's impact on Alaska, including the forced evacuation of Native people from the Aleutian Islands after a Japanese attack and the horrifying conditions that they faced afterward, but the willingness of Alaska Natives to serve in the US military became part of Elizabeth and Roy Paratrovitch's equal rights advocacy. On December thirtieth, nineteen forty one, Roy, who was Grand President of the A and B, and Elizabeth, who was Grand Vice President of the ANS, wrote a letter to Alaska Territorial Governor Ernest Greening about the Douglas Inn in Douglas, Alaska. The inn had a sign in the window that read no Natives Aloud. The paratrovichs asked Greening if he thought that was un American, especially considering that Alaska Natives were paying school taxes for schools they were often not allowed to attend, and that young Native men were being called to serve their country just as white men were doing. They compared the discrimination Native people were facing in Alaska to what Jewish people were facing in Germany. They asked the governor to use his influence to eliminate this discrimination, not just in Juneo or in Douglas, but in the whole territory. Let's focus on ending discrimination would be a big part of Elizabeth Piatrovitch's advocacy over the next few years, which we'll talk about after a sponsor break. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had appointed Ernest Greening as Territorial Governor of Alaska in nineteen thirty nine. Before that, he had served as Director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions in the Department of the Interior, where he had tried to advocate for equal rights for Native peoples in US territories, among other things. Nineteen forty he was advocating for the passage of an anti discrimination bill in Alaska. Some of the descriptions of Greening in the context of this law sound almost glowing, depicting him as a staunch defender of equal rights and a fighter for the best interests of Alaska Native people. But as always, there is a lot more nuance there. For example, earlier we mentioned the Indian Reorganization Act of nineteen thirty four, which didn't fully apply to Alaska Natives when it was first passed. It was supposed to, but there were gaps. Closing Those gaps involved the passage of the Alaska Reorganization Act in nineteen thirty six, as well as redesignating land the Alaska Native communities were occupying as reservations. The passage of the Alaska Reorganization Act had followed activism by Alaska Natives who saw land sovereignty as central to both their autonomy and their citizenship that included William Paul. This did not obviously have unanimous support among Alaska Natives by any means. There are at least eleven distinct cultures among Alaska's Indigenous peoples.

00:25:14
Speaker 2: None of those cultures is a monolith. Some of them have very big differences in terms of way of life and traditions. The establishment of reservations, for example, was really controversial. Some Native activists were concerned that reservations would undermine their work for equal rights or thought that there was some other approach that should be followed regarding a native land autonomy. But Greening, who was working for the Department of the Interior at the time, disagreed with this on the grounds that it would quote accentuate race prejudice and cleavage, and he framed it as reverse discrimination against white people. He was also very focused on the idea of so called equality for Alaska Natives as ultimately leading to their having full employment as wage laborers.

00:26:09
Speaker 1: To return to the Non Discrimination Bill, Greening submitted a draft to the Alaska Territorial legislature in nineteen forty three, and the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood started organizing support for it. This included Elizabeth Piatrovitch, who was unanimously elected Grand President of the ANS that same year.

00:26:32
Speaker 2: That summer, she started traveling around Alaska, including by vote and by plane, to talk to people about the bill and to encourage Alaska Natives to vote. At this point, her sons, Roy Junior and Frank were nine and six. Her daughter Laurie was four and small enough to ride on Elizabeth's lap while she traveled, but Baratrovitch had to find somebody else to look after Roy Junior and Frank. She knew a woman named Minny Field who ran a small orphanage in Juno, and the boys stayed there for the summer.

00:27:05
Speaker 1: Paratrovitch said she knew Field as a kind woman, and in his adult life. Roy Junior said that at first he and his brother missed their family, but they knew their parents were working on something important, and that summer turned out to be something that he remembered fondly. After Elizabeth returned from her summer of advocacy and outreach work, the family reunited and moved in with her father, Andrew Wannamaker. Her mother, Jean, had died in nineteen forty one.

00:27:34
Speaker 2: In nineteen forty three, the equal rights bill was defeated in the Alaska House with a vote of eight to eight, and its supporters vowed to try again. The following year, Congress authorized a reapportionment of Alaska Territories Legislature, and as a result of that, the size of both houses of the legislature doubled. Greening sent a letter to the Alaska Native Brotherhood in encouraging Alaska Natives to run for these newly expanded seats, and two tlangettmen were elected, Andrew Hope of Sitka and Frank Peratrovit. She was Roy's brother.

00:28:12
Speaker 1: As all of this was happening, sixteen year old Alberta Shank started publicly pushing back against segregation in Nome, almost on the other side of Alaska from Juno. Alberta's father was white and her mother was Native. She worked at Nome's Dream Theater, where part of her job was enforcing its segregated seating. She was fired after complaining to her boss about this discrimination. She wrote an essay about it, which she sent to the editor of the Nome Nugget, where it was published on March fourth, nineteen forty four. Alberta noted how many Native people were serving in the war and donating to the Red Cross. Her father was a veteran and she had two brothers who were in active service. She also pointed out that the theater was willing to take customers' money while treating them differently based on whether they were white. A couple of days after this letter was published, she went to the theater with a white date who was a sergeant in the army. They sat in the white section, and Alberta was arrested and spent a night in jail. The Paratrovitch has heard about this, and it became part of their advocacy for the Equal Rights Bill, which was reintroduced in the Alaska legislature in nineteen forty five. Elizabeth and Roy also advocated for both major political parties in Alaska to include non discrimination in their party platforms. They formed alliances with labor unions, supporting the union's efforts if the union supported equal rights. Elizabeth also developed a strategy for her conversations with legislators. She'd make an appointment to speak with one of them, and then show up with at least three other women who would all make their case together and back each other up.

00:29:59
Speaker 2: The Non Discriminate Nation Bill easily passed the Alaska House in early nineteen forty five, but there was resistance in the Senate, where it was debated. On February fifth, Senator Frank Whaley called it quote a lawyer's dream and a natural in creating hard feelings between whites and natives. Senator Alan Shattuck said, quote, the races should be kept farther apart. Who are these people barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind us.

00:30:34
Speaker 1: Roy Peratrovitch was called to speak. He pointed out that the governor had recognized the existence of discrimination in Alaska, and that the Alaska Democratic Party had included anti discrimination as a platform plank at its convention in Fairbanks. He concluded by saying, quote, only an Indian can know how it feels to be discriminated against. Either you are for discrimination or you are against it. Accordingly as you vote on this bill.

00:31:03
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Paratrovitch, who was thirty four at the time, was in the gallery with Lorie Knitting, and she was the last speaker of the day. Her exact words aren't actually recorded anywhere. Shouldn't leave a copy of her speech, and newspapers of the day had some quotes from it, But most of the quotations that you see today are from a memoir that Governor Greening wrote that was written decades later, and he said that he wrote her speech in that memoir from his memory. According to Greening's account, when she addressed the Assembly, Paratrovitch referred to what Senator Shattuck had said, saying quote, I would not have expected that I, who have barely out of savagery, would have to remind the gentleman with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them, of our bill of rights. When Shaddock asked her if she thought this bill would stop discrimination, she answered, quote, do your laws against larsony and even murder prevent those crimes? No law will eliminate crimes, but at least you, as legislators can assert to the world that you recognize the evil of the present situation and speak to your intent to help us overcome discrimination. Multiple newspapers reported that the end of Paratrovich's speech was met with great applause in the chamber. The anti discrimination bill passed the Alaska Senate with a vote of eleven to five, and the governor signed it into law on February sixteenth, nineteen forty five. Elizabeth and Roy Poratrovich were both there, and Greening gave Elizabeth the pen that he signed it with, saying it never would have passed without her. Section one of this bill read quote, All citizens shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of public inns, restaurants, eating houses, hotels, to fountains, soft drink parlors, taverns, roadhouses, barber shops, beauty parlors, bathroom rest houses, theaters, skating rinks, cafes, ice cream parlors, transportation companies, and all other conveyances and amusements, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all citizens.

00:33:24
Speaker 1: And Section two reads quote. Any person who shall violate, or aid or incite a violation of said full and equal enjoyment, or any person who shall display any printed or written sign indicating a discrimination on racial grounds of said full and equal enjoyment, for each day for which said sign is displayed, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than thirty days, or fined not more than two hundred and fifty dollars, or boats.

00:34:00
Speaker 2: After the bill was signed into law, Elizabeth and Roy went to the Baranoff Hotel to celebrate. According to Roy Junior's account, this was a hotel they had previously been barred from because they were Native.

00:34:13
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty six, Roy went to work for the Alaska Native Service in Juneo, which was part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Elizabeth continued her advocacy for Alaska Natives and became a field reporter for the National Congress of American Indians. She served as a representative to the Congress and a member of its executive committee.

00:34:35
Speaker 2: By nineteen forty eight, the Alaska Native Brotherhood's Constitution reflected an updated purpose, adding quote to commemorate the fine qualities of the Native races of North America, to preserve their history, law, art, and virtues, to cultivate the morality, education, commerce, and civil government of Alaska. To improve individual and municipal health and laboring conditions. And to create a true respect in Natives and in other persons with whom they deal for the letter and spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and Laws of the United States. In nineteen fifty four, Roy accepted a Bureau of Indian Affairs position in Oklahoma, and the family moved there, but not long after, Elizabeth learned that she had breast cancer and they returned to Juneo. She did not stop her work, though, she attended the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University in nineteen fifty six, where she was part of a panel in which she talked about all the organizational strategies that the anb and Ans had used while fighting for the anti discrimination bill. In the spring of nineteen fifty eight, Elizabeth and Roy went to Washington, d c. To talk to officials about adult education and rural resource development projects in Alaska. They also worked with Bureau of Indian Affairs officials on ways to help Alaska Native people who were struggling in the wake of a decline in Alaska's fishing industry, and on issues of land ownership and mineral rights. Eventually, Elizabeth was admitted to a hospital in Seattle, Washington for cancer treatment. Roy Junior was living there, so she had family nearby, but Roy Senior stayed in Juno so that Lori could finish high school. Elizabeth Paratrovitch died on December one, nineteen fifty eight, at the age of forty seven. She was buried in Juno's Evergreen Cemetery. Roy Senior was buried there with her after his death in nineteen eighty nine at the age of seventy nine. Although Elizabeth has become well known for her speech in favor of the Anti Discrimination Bill, she and Roy Senior were both activists for equal rights for Alaska Native people, more broadly, for their whole lives. Really, any news coverage about anything either of them did reference their outstanding leadership in the Alaska Native Bulk Brotherhood an Alaska Native sisterhood as adults. Their children also talked about how the two of them were always a teen. Elizabeth Paratrovich's story was rediscovered in the nineteen seventies, in part because of Greening's writing. In nineteen eighty eight, February sixteenth, the anniversary of the Anti Discrimination Bill being signed into law, became the Alaska state holiday of Elizabeth Paratrovitch Day. This was partially a response to the establishment of Martin Luther King Junior Day as a federal holiday in nineteen eighty three. There was a backlash against this holiday in Alaska. Some of that backlash was straightforwardly racist, but some of it was more related to a perception that King's work wasn't really as relevant in Alaska, both because the black population of Alaska was extremely small and because Alaska already had an anti discrimination law before the civil rights movement. This discussion became more intense after a proposal to rename an arts center in Anchorage after him. There is plenty to discuss around these ideas, including that King also worked for the rights of working people and poor people.

00:38:15
Speaker 1: But there's also just the fact that people wanted to recognize a civil rights leader who was from Alaska. Dorothy McKinley of the Alaska Native Sisterhood was a big part of getting this recognition for Elizabeth Paratrovitch. Today, Elizabeth Paratrovitch Day is not just about her, It is also a call to action to continue fighting injustice.

00:38:37
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety two, Gallery B of the Alaska House of Representatives Chamber was named for Elizabeth Paratrovitch. In two thousand and eight, a bronze sculpture was unveiled in Paratrovitch Park an Anchorage, called Flight of the Raven. This was sculpted by Roy Paratrovitch Junior in honor of his parents, and it referenced his mother as being part of the Raven clan. In two thousand and nine, the story of Alaska's anti discrimination bill was covered in the documentary for the Rights of All Ending Jim Crow in Alaska. The book Fighter in Velvet Gloves, which was written for teen readers, was published in twenty nineteen. It was written by Annie Boucheever with Roy Peratrovitch Junior. In twenty twenty, Elizabeth Piratrovitch was featured on the Native American dollar coin and featured in a Google doodle and a mural on the courthouse in Petersburg, Alaska. Amural in juno of her was unveiled in twenty twenty one. The Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood still exist today. They are two of the most long standing intertribal organizations in the United States. Of course, they are very different in their focus from when they were first established in the nineteen teens. In more recent years, their mission, per their constitution is quote to better the lives of Native people and their families. To fight for civil rights and land rights for all Native people. To share the cultural knowledge, wisdom, and artistic beauty of native tribal societies and to strive for a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood among all people. And that's Elizabeth Parratrovitch. Do you also have listener mail to wrap us up with? I do. It's from Isabelle, and isabel wrote about something that I meant to include in the Lisbon earthquake episode and forgot, so Isabelle wrote, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I'd like to thank you for your thoughtful approach to the topics you take on, especially from the point of view that understands ableism is a thing and is pervasive. It's great to listen to a podcast where I don't have to gird my loins for the inevitable ableism that many don't address. That being said, it's not sence what inspired me to write. I just finished listening to today's episode on the Lisbon earthquake. As a Canadian who was born in Portugal but immigrated as a young child, I don't know a lot of Portuguese history, but this is one event I'm quite familiar with, especially because my daughter did a presentation about it in a first year university Portuguese language class. One thing she learned was that the distinctive blue and white tiles that cover buildings in Lisbon were a Pumball initiative for fire proofing or at least fire limiting in the rebuilding of Lisbon. Science and art combined my happy place. On a personal note, at the rif old age of fifty five, I started doing pottery last year and it has become my hyper focus. Over the last nine months, I've started decorating my pots with designs that nod to those very traditional Portuguese tiles. It feels like a bit of a homecoming for pet Tax. I've attached a couple of photos of our current standard poodle, our third cricket. What a great name. He is made of joy and love, everything our family needs in this moment. I've also attached a photo of one of my first Portuguese inspired can dishes. Wishing you both all the best as well as most moments of joy. Isabel. Thank you Isabel for writing about those tiles. I did mean to talk about the tile work that is part of the rebuilding of Lisbon and is on so many of the buildings there, and I just I just forgot to put it in the line. We have a very cute, very cute standard poodle in one of in one of in one of these peak pictures, wearing both a harness and a neckerchief. Incredibly cute. And this little piece of pottery it's around it has the blue a blue flower floral design, kind of a little stylized, a little flirty around it. It looks like very pretty. Thank you so much Isabelle for sending this and for sending the pictures. I would give this dog, who's a very happy looking black standard poodle, some head.

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Speaker 1: Scratches two hundred hisses.

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Speaker 2: So yes, thank you again for this email. If you would like to write to us, we're at History Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. If you would like to see the show notes for the episodes, you can see our website Missed Inhistory dot com and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.