Julie Kitka, who has served as president of Alaska Federation of Natives for 33 years, is retiring, the board announced on Friday.
The board of directors of the highly political Alaska Native organization has developed a succession and search committee “and will be casting a wide net to seek diverse candidates with strong commitments to serving the Alaska Native community”
The position will be announced and open for application in March, with the new president in place by the time the 2024 AFN convention convenes Oct. 17-19 at the Dena’ina Civic & Convention Center in Anchorage.
AFN was started in 1966 to address Alaska Native land rights, and was formally incorporated in 1967. Over the past few years it has become stridently leftist and anti-development, to the point where some Alaska Native corporations, such as Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, Doyon, and Aleut Corporation withdrew from the organization. Tlingit and Haida Tribal Central Council and Tanana Chiefs Conference, which represents 39 Alaska Native villages and 37 federally recognized tribes in the Interior, also left in 2023. The village of Barrow also withdrew.
Kitka was born in Cordova to a father of Eskimo and Chugach lineage and a mother who was of German descent. After graduating from Alaska Pacific University, she started as a bookkeeper at AFN, and rose to become its president within eight years; she is the longest-serving president in the organization’s history.
During her time as president, the storied organization has drifted into national missions, such as support for Black Lives Matter, in spite of unlawful and violent riots during 2020 in the lead-up to the elections. Kitka called for the resignation of President Donald Trump after some of his supporters made a surge into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The organization endorsed then-Sen. Mark Begich in 2014 for Senate, rather than his Republican challenger Dan Sullivan, and Democrat Mary Peltola for Congress during 2022’s election cycle. It also endorsed Sen. Lisa Murkowski over Kelly Tshibaka that year.
In 2023, the organization approved a resolution supporting the new ranked-choice voting and open primary system now implemented in Alaska elections, which is also supported by liberal entities.
