This is your Alaska Black History note. I’m LaToya Lucas.
Pete William Aiken was recognized as the first Black elected official in Alaska.
He first came to Alaska in 1941 as a soldier. After the war, he returned to California and worked for some of the leading African-American magazines such as Jet and Ebony.
He came back to Fairbanks with his wife, Velma Lewis, in 1951, and they homesteaded on Chena Hot Springs Road. Pete worked at Fort Wainwright, and operated several clubs in town, including the Caribou Country Club, Root Cellar and Bare Affair.
In 1953, the Aikens were founding members of the Greater Fairbanks NAACP branch. In 1958, he successfully advocated for changes to Fairbanks city hiring practices, including an explicit anti-discrimination provision. In 1958 and 1968, he unsuccessfully ran for the Alaska House of Representatives.
In 1964, he won a seat on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, becoming the first African-American elected to public office in Alaska. (Another man, Thomas Bevers served on the Anchorage City Council before statehood. However, Bevers “passed” as white, and did not acknowledge his heritage while in Alaska.)
Pete Aiken is recognized as the first when he ran for office in the just-formed Fairbanks North Star Borough.
In office, he advocated for increased services for rural Fairbanks area residents. In 1966, tired of poor service, he led a payment strike against the local telephone provider.
Velma Aiken was a longtime employee of the University of Alaska, now University of Alaska Fairbanks. She volunteered with the NAACP and the local Girl Scout council.
She also hosted the NAACP Reporter, a fifteen-minute weekly segment that ran on KTVF television from 1956 to 1960.
