Civil and indigenous people’s rights activist (born with the Tlingit name แธดaax̲gal.aat, “person who packs for themselves”) Elizabeth Peratrovich (nรฉe Wanamaker) is celebrated on this day in the state of Alaska for championing the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945—on the anniversary of the passage of the bill in 1945, which was the first law of its kind enacted in any state or territorial possession of America. 
Overt racism from white settlers towards native peoples was widespread and included segregation in public spaces, shops and schools along with diminished job prospects and exclusion from white neighbourhoods. Several attempts beginning in 1941 to pass legislation failed in the district’s senate with the campaigner and her tribe characterised as primitive—a lot of “white man’s burden” theatrics. Nevertheless Peratrovich persisted, responding to the insults: “I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilisation behind them, of our Bill of Rights.” The bill passed and signed into law by the governor nearly twenty years before one was adopted on a national level. It is unclear whether Alaska, in the current political climate, gets to keep the holiday and the history behind it—with it being dictated what it can call its mountains and Denali being re-flagged again after a populist president with imperial ambitions and a penchant for tariffs.
synchronoptica
one year ago: AI does text-to-video (with synchronoptica) plus Russian opposition leader found dead
seven years ago: US school shootings plus nominative determinism
eight years ago: cognition in non-human animals
nine years ago: subversive merit badges, rodeo tailor Nudie Cohn plus upper- and lower case
eleven years ago: an action figure collection plus the state of education in the US
