A bill to authorize the President to posthumously award a gold medal on behalf of Congress to Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich and Roy Peratrovich in recognition of their outstanding and enduring contributions to civil rights and dignity of the Native peoples of Alaska and the Nation.

Elizabeth Wanamaker, a Tlingit Indian, was born on July 4, 1911, in Petersburg, Alaska.

Elizabeth married Roy Peratrovich, a Tlingit Indian from Klawock Alaska, on December 15, 1931.

In 1941, the couple moved to Juneau, Alaska.

Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovich discovered that they could not purchase a home in the section of Juneau in which they desired to live due to discrimination against Alaska Natives.

In the early 1940s, there were reports that some businesses in Southeast Alaska posted signs reading No Natives Allowed.

Roy, as Grand President of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Elizabeth, as Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, petitioned the Territorial Governor and the Territorial Legislature to enact a law prohibiting discrimination against Alaska Natives in public accommodations.

Rebuffed by the Territorial Legislature in 1943, they again sought passage of an antidiscrimination law in 1945.

On February 8, 1945, as the Alaska Territorial Senate debated the anti-discrimination law, Elizabeth, who was sitting in the visitor’s gallery of the Senate, was recognized to present her views on the measure.

The eloquent and dignified testimony given by Elizabeth that day is widely credited for passage of the antidiscrimination law.

On February 16, 1945, Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening signed into law an act prohibiting discrimination against all citizens within the jurisdiction of the Territory of Alaska in access to public accommodations and imposing a penalty on any person who shall display any printed or written sign indicating discrimination on racial grounds of such full and equal enjoyment.

Nineteen years before Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and 18 years before the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I have a Dream speech, one of America’s first antidiscrimination laws was enacted in the Territory of Alaska, thanks to the efforts of Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich.

Since 1989, the State of Alaska has observed Elizabeth Peratrovich Day on February 16 of each year and a visitor’s gallery of the Alaska House of Representatives in the Alaska State Capitol has been named for Elizabeth Peratrovich.