ABSTRACT
Modern Alaskans are surprised and shocked to learn that before Second World War racial segregation and Jim Crow policies toward Alaska Natives were standard practice throughout much of Alaska. With the passage of the 1945 Alaska equal rights bill, the signs in Alaskan businesses prohibiting Natives came down. The quest for Native citizenship and equality with whites inspired the establishment in 1912 of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, an association that evolved into the first significant Native political organization in Alaska. The general American attitude toward Native Alaskans, as with blacks in the South, was reflected in a persistent pattern of discrimination. While discrimination in public accommodations was outlawed in 1945, the territory’s segregated school system remained until after Alaska achieved statehood in 1958. During Second World War, a visiting war correspondent noted in 1943 that the social position of Indians and Eskimos in Alaska “is equivalent to that of a Negro in Georgia or Mississippi”.
