Anchorage Assembly to vote Tuesday on resolution recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day

The Anchorage Assembly takes up a resolution Tuesday, Oct. 20, that would recognize the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day in the Municipality of Anchorage. Assembly Chair Anna Brawley and Vice Chair Daniel Volland lead the sponsors. Ten other Assembly members, Baldwin Day, Goecker, Handeland, Johnson, Martinez, McCormick, Park, Perez-Verdia, Scout and Silvers, are also listed as sponsors, along with Mayor Suzanne LaFrance.

The resolution is on the meeting's consent agenda, which is not required to be set for public hearing.

It calls Anchorage "Alaska's largest Native village, with more than 23,000 Alaska Natives calling Anchorage home." It also cites the city's status as a Welcoming City, under which the municipality "opposes racism towards indigenous peoples in our community."

The resolution traces Indigenous Peoples Day to 1977, when a delegation of Native Nations proposed it to an international conference on discrimination against Indigenous people in the Americas. It notes that then-Gov. Bill Walker signed House Bill 78 in 2017, making Alaska the second state to recognize the day. The Alaska House passed the bill 31-7 that February, according to the House Journal, and the law took effect Sept. 22, 2017.

Brawley marked this year's observance at the Assembly's Oct. 6 meeting, telling members the day is "also now a municipal holiday." "It is a time to honor the generations who have cared for this land and recognize the important role Indigenous communities continue to play in shaping Anchorage and Alaska, as they have for thousands of years," she said in her chair's report.

The Assembly already opens its meetings with a land acknowledgment recognizing the Dena'ina Athabascans as the stewards of the land where it meets.

The vote comes two days before the Alaska Federation of Natives opens its 60th anniversary convention in Anchorage, running Oct. 22-24. The Assembly is also set Tuesday to consider a separate resolution welcoming convention delegates and attendees.