Let me get this out in the first sentence: No disrespect to Martin Luther King. He is a larger-than-life iconic character backed by a great public relations machine.
That said, comparatively, King didn't do much for me, and I find it offensive that Anchorage has just named a major byway after him.
"Don't say such things, it isn't worth offending the masses and forever being known as a King-hater," a no-doubt wiser-than-me friend suggested.
Why should I worry about offending people who don't worry about offending me? And I don't hate Dr. King.What I hate is that in pushing him forward into the limelight we are pushing worthy Alaskans further into the shadows.
Alaskans who are just as deserving as Dr. King, in some ways more so. Alaskans who should be uplifted and revered on their home court before a man who never stepped foot on our soil.
Elizabeth Peratrovich comes quickly to mind. I don't need Dr. King's civil rights movement because Peratrovich broke trail in Alaska while King was skipping out on his high school prom to attend Morehouse College.
Peratrovich. An Alaska Native. A woman. Two steps below a black man in the world of discrimination.
Peratrovich didn't have busloads of people standing behind her when she walked up the capitol steps to face a room full of cranky white guys who weren't worried about offending her. Peratrovich bravely provided testimony which cultivated passage of Anthony Dimond's anti-discrimination bill in 1945.
Anthony Dimond. Great guy. Not an Alaska Native. Not a woman. I am sure you have heard of the name as there is a nice major road named after Dimond on the south side of Anchorage. Forgive me, I digress.
No, Peratrovich was pretty much standing alone on that day. She was beautifully eloquent. She was full of conviction. Her dream became the reality that I have lived, and I am very grateful for that.
A small percentage of Alaskans even know Peratrovich exists, and she isn't even close to being a contender nationally. Naming a major byway after our homegrown civil rights leader is the least we could do.
Col. Norman Vaughan is another glory stealer. Now, I am not dishing Vaughan. I knew him, I enjoyed the hell out of him, I think he is wonderful.
If you talk about Alaskan heroes of exploration, Vaughan is the first guy to be mentioned in almost every conversation. Man has a mountain named after him, for Pete's sake. In Antarctica, where he did his exploring, on the other side of the planet.
No one mentions Ada Blackjack. Blackjack was the sole survivor of an Arctic expedition in the early 1920s. A city girl who was hired as a seamstress, she didn't know how to hunt, trap, fish, shoot a gun, or live off the land.
When the other members of the party left her behind to tend to an expeditioner who eventually died of scurvy, Blackjack had to survive the Arctic winter alone in a canvas tent with little food and lots of polar bears.
Blackjack demonstrated in her character a deep well of faith, loyalty, courage and determination. A true hero of Arctic exploration. An Alaska Native. A woman. A person who felt the sting of discrimination often in her lifetime.
Who learns about Blackjack in school? Where is the Blackjack monument? Blackjack building? The major road in Alaska's largest village dedicated to Blackjack?
I wish it were just Blackjack and Peratrovich that are getting the short end of the stick, but they are just at the top of a long list of Alaskans who aren't getting the honor they deserve. With name recognition more outwardly aware types might at least ask "Who was Benson, Klatt, O'Malley, or Spenard?" No one knows to ask, "Who was Blackjack?" and so her remarkable story is lost to most.
I am all for giving snaps to Dr. King in his hometown. Bully for him. But this is Anchorage, Alaska. We should acknowledge the honors and achievements of Outsiders after we have distinguished our own. It is the least we can do.
Dorene M. Lorenz is a former Seward City Council member.
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