Alaska Native Elizabeth Peratrovich to be Featured on 2020 Native American $1 Coin

Published October 9, 2019

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — In 1945, Elizabeth Peratrovich, a Tlingit from Alaska, fought discrimination she and other Alaska Natives encountered. Fifteen years before Alaska gained its statehood, Peratrovich, as a leader of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, worked for passage in the territorial legislature to bar discrimination of Alaska Natives. Its passage was the first anti-discrimination law in the United States, prohibiting discrimination in access to public accommodations, was passed in the Alaskan Territorial Government.

She is credited with getting the law passed.

To honor the 75th annivesary of the passage of the law, the U.S. Mint unveiled the 2020 Native American $1 coin called Elizabeth Peratrovich and Alaska’s Anti-Discrimination Law. 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of Elizabeth Peratrovich’s famous testimony in support of the anti-discrimination law.

Characteristics

The obverse (heads) design retains the central figure of the “Sacagawea” design first produced in 2000.

The reverse (tails) design features a portrait of Elizabeth Peratrovich, whose advocacy was considered a deciding factor in the passage of the 1945 Anti-Discrimination Law in the Alaskan state legislature. The foreground features a symbol of the Tlingit Raven moiety, of which she was a member.

Obverse Inscriptions

• LIBERTY
• IN GOD WE TRUST

Reverse Inscriptions

• UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ELIZABETH PERATROVICH
• $1
• ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW OF 1945

Incused (edge) Inscriptions

• 2020
• Mint mark
• E PLURIBUS UNUM

The design was unveiled on Oct. 5 at a ceremony at Alaska Pacific University with the theme of “Elizabeth Peratrovich and Alaska’s Anti-Discrimination Law” referring to Peratrovich’s work passing an anti-discrimination law in 1945. A bill designating November as Alaska Native Heritage Month was signed at the same event.