
students at Friday’s assembly.
Haines students from kindergarten to 12th grade described Tlingit civil rights leader Elizabeth Peratrovich as “important,” “awesome” and “the female version of Martin Luther King Jr.”
“She’s the one that made everybody be together,” said kindergartener Kayci Ferrin.
On Friday, the Haines Borough School hosted an assembly to celebrate Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, 74 years after Alaska’s Anti-Discrimination Act was adopted, banning discrimination in public facilities.
The 1945 legislation came nearly two decades before Martin Luther King Jr.’s influenced Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Students sang songs, played Native games and heard from Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS) elders and Mayor Jan Hill.
“I think it’s a good thing we don’t have school off,” senior Kamakana Kanahele said. He said that attending the assembly allows students to honor and learn about the civil rights leader.
Native Youth Olympics were added to the school’s annual observation of Peratrovich Day this year.
Fifth-grader Ruby Martin said that the assembly was “pretty cool.” Martin said she celebrates her Native culture by learning Tlingit dances and going to potlatches. “I’m definitely happy that (Peratrovich) stood up for me because right now I wouldn’t be able to go to this school, I wouldn’t be able to go into most restaurants, and I would be discriminated (against),” she said.
Ninth-grader Trygve Bakke said his late grandmother used to tell him about segregation in her lifetime. “She used to be treated like garbage,” he said. “But 1945, that was around the time she came to the Haines House, and she said it was basically a new world.”
Sophomore Wesley Verhamme said that Peratrovich changed the way Native Americans and whites interacted. “She formed a space where Native Americans and whites can get along,” he said.
Verhamme, who moved to Haines as an elementary-schooler, said he has learned a lot from Natives in his community. “When I first came up from Vegas the first people to teach us how to fish was the Willard family,” he said.
Girls said that Peratrovich’s accomplishments are inspiring.
“It was probably hard to do what she did, because women didn’t have the same rights as men,” third-grader C.C. Elliott said.
Fifth-grader Zoe Hansen said, “A lot of people think that women can’t do what men can do, so it’s inspiring for her to go out there and change things in the world when other people think (women) should just stay home and cook.”
Fourth-grader Autumn Grogan compared Peratrovich to Rosa Parks, who “sat on the bus and wouldn’t get off.”
“What I don’t understand is why men got to have rights and women didn’t,” she said. “We are all humans. It doesn’t matter what clan we are in, or what language we speak or what color skin or anything,” she said. “We’re all people and we all deserve the same rights.”
Senior Morgan Cloke summarized Peratrovich’s legacy as a “fight for what you believe in and think about others. (Peratrovich) was thinking of not just herself, but also of Alaska Natives as a whole.”
Not all students grew up with Peratrovich as a household name. Students that have lived in the lower 48, or even other parts of Alaska, often didn’t learn about the civil rights heroine until coming to Haines.
Sophomore Eli Williamson moved to Haines from Florida in fourth grade. At school in Florida, he celebrated an influential Native American leader from his state, Osceola. Williams said every community should learn about local historical leaders.
“Even though I’m not Native, it’s important to learn about their culture and celebrate it with them so it’s not forgotten,” he said.