Honoring a Civil Rights Leader
In the spirit of Presidents Day, PND Engineers, Inc. (PND) respectfully honors Elizabeth Peratrovich (1911-1958)―the former Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, a nonprofit organization founded in 1915 to address racism against Alaska Native peoples throughout the state. February 16 is a special holiday at PND. Every February 16 is Elizabeth Peratrovich Day in Alaska, an annual state holiday by decree of the Alaska Legislature in 1988. We treat every Elizabeth Peratrovich Day as a paid holiday for our staff out of respect for Elizabeth’s inspiring civil rights leadership and, of course, for raising our inspirational leader, the late PND co-founder Roy Peratrovich, Jr. (1934-2023).
Elizabeth’s activism and advocacy helped create a better future for Alaska Natives and ultimately secured her place in the National Native American Hall of Fame (2019). Her courageous and passionate speech in front of the Alaska legislature inspired passage of the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, which was ratified on February 16, 1945.
Standing up, speaking out
After the Alaska Territorial House of Representatives passed the legislation with a commanding 19-5 vote, the Alaska Territorial Senate countered its opposition: “Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind us?” The senator from Juneau’s rebuke solicited vocal support among his colleagues, which ultimately led to Roy Peratrovich, Sr.’s final testimony that day. When the senate president, per custom, opened the floor to the general public at the end of the bill’s debate, a 33-year-old Elizabeth stood up, left her young daughter seated at the back of the gallery, walked to the front of the room, and faced the assembled legislators. “I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery,” she improvised, “would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights.” After Elizabeth delivered the rest of her well-rehearsed address, the Juneau senator again challenged her: “Will the proposed bill eliminate discrimination?” Elizabeth replied, “Do your laws against larceny and 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.”
“full and equal accommodations, facilities, and privileges to all citizens in places of public accommodations within the jurisdiction of the 'Territory of Alaska'”
Elizabeth’s speech won the crowd and the senate; the bill passed 11-5, providing for “full and equal accommodations, facilities, and privileges to all citizens in places of public accommodations within the jurisdiction of the 'Territory of Alaska'" and specifying penalties for violation.
Elizabeth Peratrovich
"A single person, speaking from the heart, can affect the future of all."
Without Elizabeth, the obvious reason aside of her being Roy’s mother, Roy would not have had the opportunities he had in his career for collecting all of the “firsts” he was so proud of―such as the first Alaska Native to enter the public school system in Juneau in the early 1940s; designing the first separated interchanges for the Seattle
freeway system in the late 1950s; designing the first all-steel orthotropic transfer bridge at the Cordova Ferry Terminal in the 1960s; designing arguably the country's first cable-stayed vehicular crossing bridge over the Sitka Harbor in the early 1970s; or co-founding the first architect- and engineer-owned insurance company (AEIC) in the nation in the 1980s. Roy, Tlingit Indian, Raven Moeity, was also the first Alaska Native to earn his professional civil engineering license in the State of Alaska: “AK-CE-111100, I’m pretty proud of that one,” Roy said. That was 1962, just three years after Alaska statehood. He founded PND in 1979.
From all of us at PND, Happy Elizabeth Peratrovich Day!