You know this story:

Mr. & Mrs. P were eager for their move into a new com­mu­ni­ty.                  A nice house, con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed near Mr. P’s work­place.                    The deal was abrupt­ly revoked when the prop­er­ty own­er met his buyers.

Though Mr & Mrs. P’s tax­es paid for the local pub­lic schools, their chil­dren weren’t allowed to attend.

Walk­ing down Main Street, they saw sign after sign post­ed on busi­ness­es, explic­it­ly stat­ing that “their kind” wasn’t welcome.

You know this sto­ry, but per­haps it’s not the one you’re expecting.

The year was 1941. Alas­ka was still a ter­ri­to­ry. Mr. and Mrs. P were Roy and Eliz­a­beth Per­a­tro­vich, a Tlin­git fam­i­ly with two chil­dren. They had just moved to Juneau, where they dis­cov­ered the extent of inequal­i­ty fac­ing Alas­ka Natives.

Alaskan play­wright Diane Ben­son as Eliz­a­beth Per­a­tro­vich. Pho­to by Bill Hess.

As pres­i­dents of the Alas­ka Native Sisterhood/Brotherhood, she and her hus­band approached Gov­er­nor Gru­en­ing. They began a two year bat­tle to bring an anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion bill before the Alas­ka Legislature.

The Gov­er­nor was sup­port­ive; many sen­a­tors were not. Oppo­nents talked out of both sides of their mouths, dis­miss­ing the bill as unnec­es­sary while argu­ing  it wouldn’t stop dis­crim­i­na­tion. Racial ten­sion would esca­late in response — as would inter­mar­riage, increas­ing the “mixed race problem.”

Sen­a­tor Allen Shat­tuck demand­ed, “Who are these peo­ple, bare­ly out of sav­agery, who want to asso­ciate with us whites, with 5000 years of record­ed civ­i­liza­tion behind us?”

When the floor opened for pub­lic tes­ti­mo­ny, Eliz­a­beth Per­a­tro­vich stepped to the podi­um.  A com­posed woman in the most heat­ed dis­cus­sions, she began, “I would not have expect­ed that I, who am bare­ly out of sav­agery, would have to remind gen­tle­men with 5000 years of record­ed civ­i­liza­tion behind them of our Bill of Rights.”

Calm and delib­er­ate, Mrs. Per­a­tro­vich described the legal exclu­sions Alas­ka Natives expe­ri­enced. She told the sen­a­tors, “There are three kinds of per­sons who prac­tice dis­crim­i­na­tion. First, the politi­cian who wants to main­tain an infe­ri­or minor­i­ty group so he can always promise them some­thing. Sec­ond, the Mr. and Mrs. Jones who aren’t quite sure of their social posi­tion and who are nice to you on one occa­sion and can’t see you on oth­ers, depend­ing on who they are with. Third, the great super­man who believes in the supe­ri­or­i­ty of the white race.”

When Shat­tuck asked if she believed a law would elim­i­nate dis­crim­i­na­tion, she replied, “Do your laws against lar­ce­ny 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 your intent to help us over­come discrimination.”

The room erupt­ed in applause, and the bill passed, 11 – 5. On Feb­ru­ary 16, 1945, the ter­ri­to­ry of Alas­ka signed America’s first anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion legislation.

*****

That may have been the last time that my home state was ahead of the social jus­tice curve. Though Alaska’s Jim Crow laws were for­mal­ly abol­ished in 1945, the explic­it sig­nage on store­fronts has been replaced by cod­ed short­hand, sot­to voce com­men­tary by those who believe they’re in like-mind­ed com­pa­ny. These con­ver­sa­tions have a lot to do with my deck­hand deci­sion-mak­ing these days — when Hate and Fear are your pri­ma­ry ship­mates, the crew­share is nev­er worth the price of the show.

Alaskans are still trudg­ing a long, heav­i­ly rut­ted road towards equal­i­ty.  The bat­tle Eliz­a­beth Per­a­tro­vich led over 70 years ago wages on, now for the rights of les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al and trans­gen­der res­i­dents. While Cap’n J and I spent Mon­day night cel­e­brat­ing Wash­ing­ton State’s long-await­ed Mar­riage Equal­i­ty, Anchor­age still bat­tles for the most basic of civ­il rights, hous­ing and employ­ment pro­tec­tions for LGBT cit­i­zens. As if quot­ing direct­ly from the wrong side of Alaskan his­to­ry, May­or Sul­li­van vetoed the 2009 ordi­nance, deny­ing any such pro­tec­tions are nec­es­sary.

I find myself won­der­ing who will stand up as this move­men­t’s Elizabeth.

Thanks to Bill Hess for shar­ing his pho­to with Hooked. His blog, Log­book Wasil­la, is here; you can also read his pow­er­ful sto­ry of Diane Ben­son’s one-woman play, “When My Spir­it Raised Its Hands,” here.  Also, thanks to Dave Kif­fer for his excel­lent 2008 arti­cle, “Alas­ka Cel­e­brates Civ­il Rights Pio­neer,” avail­able here.