Elizabeth Peratrovich is remembered today for her role in the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945. The history of this act, in particular the dramatic confrontation in the territorial Senate between Peratrovich and opponents of Native rights, is so shrouded in myth and has been embellished repeatedly across the decades that we know very little about what actually happened in the Capitol that day in February 1945.

For example, Peratrovich left no written copy of her testimony, and the Legislature in those years kept no transcripts and made no audio recordings of its committee hearings and floor sessions. So apart from a couple of quotes in a newspaper article, we don’t really know what was said by anyone. (Those of you eager to disagree should note that Peratrovich’s famous and oft-quoted testimony has no other evidence behind it and was almost certainly written and revised by others starting in the 1980s.)

There is one part of this history that is very easy to document, however. But Gov. Walker gets this wrong too. According to his nomination letter, Peratrovich faced “absolute opposition” in the Senate and her testimony was “the deciding factor that gained passage of (the Act).”

This version of the story holds that the bill was headed for certain defeat until Peratrovich’s impassioned testimony warmed the hearts of all but the bitterest racists and carried the bill to victory.

But that’s not what happened. We need only count the votes to see that the Anti-Discrimination Bill had a majority of senators behind it even before the floor session began.