For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska

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This documentary reveals the true-life story of an extraordinary Alaskan woman who becomes an unlikely hero in the fight for civil rights. More »

Program Length: 57 minutes
Production Staff: Producer: Jeffry Lloyd Silverman
Production Company: Blueberry Productions
Format: DVD
Website for For the Rights of All
Additional Resources: Viewer Guide
Public Broadcast Release: November 2009

In the Alaska Purchase of 1867 the United States took on more than just the land. There were indigenous people living everywhere in Alaska. Like Native Americans in the lower 48, Alaska Natives struggled to keep their basic human rights as well as protect their ancient ties to the land. The Bill of Rights did not apply to them.

Through extensive reenactments and rarely seen historic footage and photographs, 'For the Rights of All' reveals these remarkable people and their non-violent struggle for civil rights. This extraordinary story bridges the Civil War to World War II to todays Native leaders, who find inspiration in the efforts of the generations that preceded them.

Those efforts culminated in the passage of the Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, one of the first such laws passed anywhere in America, and ten years before Brown versus Board of Education. Of particular note is a young Tlingit activist, Elizabeth Peratrovich, whose dramatic testimony on behalf of the Act is fully reenacted in this film by Jeffry Lloyd Silverman. Narrated by Peter Coyote.