Decades before the marches and victories of the 1960s, a group of Alaska Natives were making civil rights history. Throughout the early twentieth century, the Alaska Native Brotherhood fought for citizenship, voting rights, and education for all Alaska Natives, securing unheard-of victories in a contentious time. Their unified work and legal prowess propelled the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, one of the biggest claim settlements in United States history. A Dangerous Idea tells an overlooked but powerful story of Alaska Natives fighting for their rights under American law and details one of the rare successes for Native Americans in their nearly two-hundred-year effort to define and protect their rights.

A study of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia. Appendices include constitutions of the two societies.

"Foreword by Chief Dr. Robert Joseph, Ambassador, Reconciliation Canada"--Cover.

“No Natives or Dogs Allowed,” blared the storefront sign at Elizabeth Peratrovich, then a young Alaska Native Tlingit. The sting of those words would stay with her all her life. Years later, after becoming a seasoned fighter for equality, she would deliver her own powerful message: one that helped change Alaska and the nation forever. In 1945, Peratrovich stood before the Alaska Territorial Legislative Session and gave a powerful speech about her childhood and her experiences being treated as a second-class citizen. Her heartfelt testimony led to the passing of the landmark Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act, America’s first civil rights legislation. Today, Alaska celebrates Elizabeth Peratrovich Day every February 16, and she will be honored on the gold one-dollar coin in 2020. Annie Boochever worked with Elizabeth’s eldest son, Roy Peratrovich Jr., to bring Elizabeth’s story to life in the first book written for young teens on this remarkable Alaska Native woman.

Haa Kusteeyi, Our Culture: Tlingit Life Stories is an introduction to Tlingit social and political history. Each biography is compelling in its own merit, but when all are taken together, the collection shows patterns of interaction among people and communities of today, and across the generations. By combining historical documents and photographs with accounts gathered from living memory, the book also enables the present, living generations to interact with their past. The book features biographies and life histories of more than 50 men and women, most born between 1880 and 1910, including a special section on the founders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood. Additional lives are described tangentially. Each biography or life history follows a standard format that includes vital statistics, genealogical information, names in Tlingit and English, and major achievements. But each is also unique. Like the lives they describe, all vary in length, detail, and style, depending on authorship and available human and archival resources. To the fullest extent possible oral and written material from the subjects and their families has been incorporated. Some is more anecdotal, some more historical. The appendixes include previously unpublished historical documents and Tlingit texts with facing translations. The lives in this volume show how individual people both shaped and were shaped by their time and place in history.