Soul to Soul

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The following is special programming sponsored by Public Radio KUNV 91.5. The content of Soul2Soul does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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This is Clay T. White and the program is Soul to Soul, a free-for-all of positive energy.

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This is a place where on the fourth Sunday mornings at 830, we talk about books, food, history, books, oral history, politics, and Las Vegas history. Usually I have a guest, but today you just have me. And because it's Black History Month, I have been doing presentations all over the city, talking about the black experience, sometimes nationally, but most of the times right here in the Las Vegas Valley. I learned this history because I collect oral histories, and in order to collect a good oral history, you have to do research. It means that in most cases I have to know more than the person I'm interviewing, not just about their particular experience, but I need to know the history surrounding the event. If a person is going to talk to me about the Hoover Dam, I need to know the history of the Hoover Dam, when it began, when the money was appropriated. I need to know all of the history of blacks in Las Vegas, starting in 1905. Really, it starts before that. Around 1872, the first African-American comes to the Las Vegas Valley. His name is John Howell. Now, how did we find that out? Because we have a historian here in the Las Vegas area who conduct who did a PhD dissertation and During her research. She came across John Howell Wrote a paper about John Howell. We know that he came from Tarboro, North Carolina Which is only 35 miles from where I grew up by the way. He purchased land here in the Las Vegas Valley in the 1870s. He had a partner, a partner last name Wilson, and the two of them purchased property called the Spring Ranch. Part of that ranch is today Springs Preserve. So an African-American man owned part of that property. John Howell married a Native American woman. They had four or five children. He was a freighter. He was a gold miner as well as owning property and doing a bit of farming here and there. He moves from here to Moapa but always lived the rest of his life in this area. Now, most of you know that Las Vegas is here because the railroad starts the city. The railroad is built to connect San Pedro, Los Angeles to Salt Lake City. That's the name of the railroad could stop for water for repairs. So where was that place? They decided Las Vegas. So that's why Las Vegas is here and at that time there was plenty of water. Water was bubbling up from the ground here in the desert. So people began to migrate here. As soon as they found out that there was going to be a town, people began to migrate because in 1904 a man named JT McWilliams was hired to survey the property that the railroad was going to buy from Helen J Stewart. Some of you might know who Helen J Stewart is. We call her the mother of Las Vegas. She came here early on back in the 70s and 80s as well. They loaned some money to Mr. Gass. G-A-S-S. You see his name on a street downtown. Mr. Gass could not pay the Stewart's back that money so they assumed his property. So that downtown Las Vegas area where you think about, oh, the Plaza, the Al Cortez, all of that property, that area, which is now downtown, belonged to Helen J. Stewart. J.T. McWilliams surveyed all of her holdings and he discovered 80 acres of land which had not been claimed. That 80 acres of land was west of the tracks. He purchased the property, 80 acres, laid out a town site, 1904, and he started advertising that he had property for sale. So that early people thought, wow, this is a wonderful opportunity. began to buy property, open businesses, put up homes, and they moved to Las Vegas. Now our records say that over a thousand people purchased property from J.T. McWilliams. That's a really big number for 1904. So please don't quote me on that number because we're not sure that that number is correct. African Americans did not come until 1905. So in 1904, we have a growing community west of the tracks. In 1905, when the railroad owners came to start their business, to start the railroad going back and forth, they said, oh no, downtown is going to be east of the tracks. So they had that famous auction in May of 1905. A lot of you have heard about the auction. It's where they sold property east of the tracks so that people could come and start forming downtown. Well the people who had purchased property from J.T. McWilliams, property that was west of the tracks. They purchased property from the Clark brothers. They moved their houses, their buildings, their shacks, whatever they were running their business out of or living out of, they put it on skids and they rolled it across the tracks because they wanted to be downtown. So that area west of the tracks was just left there. A few people were left, people who did not move across the tracks to the official downtown, they just stayed there. In a few months there was a fire that destroyed parts of that property, that J.T. McWilliams Town site, so it was like a little rag town that was left over there. So downtown Las Vegas began to develop. 1905, the railroad starts. People start moving in for the jobs that the railroad provides. And in that number, we have African Americans. The railroad runs the town in the beginning. And they tell African Americans that they should live on Block 17. The downtown is laid out in grids, the same grids we see today. And Block 17 is near, right there around the Mob Museum. So if you know the building that was the first courthouse, post office on the first level, it was known as the post office, our first federal building, that is the building that is now where African-Americans lived at one time in and around that area. So, African-Americans actually lived in that area. They began to start their businesses, restaurants, barbershops, shoeshine parlors, all kinds of businesses, beauty shops, all began to grow up right there in the heart of downtown that we know today. You know today we call Las Vegas, historically, we call Las Vegas and sometimes all the entire state of Nevada the Mississippi of the West. That was a name that started back in the 20s and it kind of stuck. Well, why is this city known for Mississippi? I mean, how horrible could race relations have been? So in 1925, we had the first parade of the Ku Klux Fremont Street, the main street of downtown Las Vegas. They marched in full regalia, so with the headdress so you didn't know who they were. Of course it frightened the African-American community, but this time the Ku Klux Klan was not here just to harass African-Americans, but they were this time, this iteration of that group, they were here to protest against Catholics, immigrants. So if you were not a regular Anglo-Saxon American, then the This iteration of the Ku Klux Klan wanted you to behave in certain ways. In 1928, the African American community started the NAACP. That stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It started back in the New York area in 1928 we get our chapter of the NAACP African-americans are working on the railroad. They have small business enterprises, so we have lots of entrepreneurs in the community and the five people who start the NAACP are Zimmy Turner Mary Nettles Clarence Ray, Bill Jones, and Arthur McCants. They send the money international. And what I want you to notice is on that list of five people, we have two women, Zimmy and Mary. Three men, Clarence, Bill, and Arthur. Arthur becomes the first president of the country. So he is qualified to lead the branch. He is also independent. He's completely independent. He is not working for the railroad or for any of the other businesses in the community. He is a barber. He is self-employed. A self-employed person makes the best president of the NAACP, because it's more difficult to threaten you. In the South, where the NAACP was very, very popular, where I grew up, and I grew up in North Carolina, so those seven states, ministers supported by black churches became presidents of NAACP branches. It wasn't unusual for dentists and black doctors to become the president, but always a person as often as possible, a person who was completely independent. About 1928, as well as the NAACP starting that branch, we hear that there is going to be a dam built in this area. It's going to be called the Hoover Dam, sometimes we refer to it as the Boulder Dam, same place. The federal government issues a mandate, 1928, that that dam is going to be constructed. 1929, the Great Depression starts. The federal government starts hiring people to work on the dam in 1930. So beginning in 1928, people began to migrate here. 1929, even more migrate here because of the Great Depression. African-Americans migrate along with everybody else because everybody wants those federal jobs, that the federal government is going to employ all of these people. So everybody begins to migrate here. Of course, not everybody, but people in droves began to migrate here. 1929, 1930, the same time period, people began to move out of the downtown area so that businesses can flourish even more. White people began to move eastward, so places like John S. Park over on 6th Street where we see all of those beautiful lawyers' offices now that were private homes, they are moving out of downtown and moving to areas like that, to the Huntridge area. Some whites moved into areas that had restrictive covenants meaning African-Americans could not live in those areas. Black people as you know were living in and around block 17. They were told that they had to move out of the heart of downtown as well. African Americans did not necessarily want to move. They didn't have any place to go. So the city suggested that they move west of the tracks to that old town site that J.T. McWilliams had laid out in 1904, where just a few people were left. They were told that if they did not move there, that their business licenses would not be renewed. So the small African-American community began to move across the tracks. They would have more space there, they could open more businesses, so they did move out of downtown and they moved across the tracks. Hoover Dam starts hiring people in the 1930s. A thousand people 1,000 people are hired before the construction work even begins So 1930 a thousand men are hired Can you imagine the elation in the community? people who have been living in tech in shacks and Tents and any place they possibly could in and around that Boulder City area where the dam was going to be can you imagine how they felt? A thousand of them got jobs. Guess how many African-Americans got jobs during that period? Not one. So the NAACP. The regional office for our area was in California. So they sent a person here named William Pickens, and Mr. Pickens tried to negotiate for jobs. In the long run, jobs were open. African Americans began to get some of those jobs. Boulder City was constructed. Construction begun about this time. And that construction is called Boulder City. Began so that there could be places where these people working on the Hoover Dam could live. Federal government housing. African-Americans were not allowed to live in Boulder City. Over the period of dam construction, we had reporters coming to Las Vegas. Not always did we get the full story about what was happening in the black community. We didn't always get the full story from the local newspapers, but there was a newspaper called the California Eagle, an African-American And I'm going to tell you a story about a senior eagle. African-American newspaper sent reporters to Las Vegas just to investigate, to see what they had heard about Hoover Dam employment. It was really true. Langston Hughes and they investigated and they found that blacks weren't being hired, even as the NAACP was getting into action. So we knew that help was needed. So when William Pickens came, he was able to negotiate. The Department of Interior agreed and they began to hire a few African Americans. Out of the 20,000 workers who worked on the Hoover Dam for that four and a half year period, 44 were African American. So when we tell stories about housing and how housing was not equal, when African Americans went across the tracks, they began to live in shacks and tents in that area. Whites who moved to the east of downtown were able to get FHA financing because that started in 1938. You could start getting financing to build houses, African-Americans did not qualify, did not include people of color at that time. And now African-Americans don't qualify for the same jobs. So when you look at building wealth in a family, us build wealth through our house. Our house gains value over the years. We can send our kids to college by taking out loans. African Americans did not have those amenities, did not have the jobs so you could even earn that kind of money. World War II starts for us in 1941. It is when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and the United States goes into war. You know that the war has already started in Europe. So basic magnesium is constructed because manganese ore has to be refined to build war materials. That ore is used to build bombs, bullets, airplanes, all kinds of war materials. African Americans come here for those jobs at Basic Magnesium Incorporated. This is the beginning of the largest part of the black migration, where we can see blacks migrating in great numbers all at the same time. Blacks are coming here from small towns in the South, like Fort Ice, Arkansas, Tallulah, Louisiana, small towns in Mississippi, but they're also coming from places like Chicago. So people are coming for all kinds of jobs, professional jobs, working in factories, working in the back of the house of the small casino industry that's just beginning. We're beginning to have motels. Someone has to clean those rooms. So African-American women are working in that industry. African American men are working as business owners along with African American women. And they're working in Basic Magnesium Incorporated. A lot of you have heard of Basic High School. So this is Basic Townsite. It is built near Henderson. So the city of Henderson gets its start from this factory that starts and starts to hire people from all over the country. The federal government builds housing a second time. They build housing this time for African-Americans as well as white workers. The housing development near Basic Magnesium where blacks live is called Carver Park. Housing for the white workers is called Victory Village. So African-Americans migrate in large numbers. But remember I told you that the West Side community has started and blacks are living in the West Side? Well, the West Side is where all the black churches are. It's where the black restaurants are, the black beauty parlors, all of the black businesses, the barbershops, the dress shops, the men's clothing store, all of those are growing up in the West Side. Most African Americans coming here to work at Basic Magnesium don't really want to live over in that Henderson area, that basic town site area. So they really don't move into Carver Park in great numbers. Some blacks do, but pretty soon you see that white people began to move into that area as well as into Victory Village. But the housing area for Carver Park was designed by Paul R. Williams. Paul R. Williams, if you listen to my program, we talked about him a couple of weeks ago and we talked about the housing that he had built here in Southern Nevada. He was a builder who built beautiful homes all over Southern California. Almost 3,000 structures can be attributed to to his talent today That was Paul R. Williams Carver Park So it's the 1940s blacks are moving here in great numbers. They have jobs. They're working They have businesses Entrepreneurs are coming in Mabel Holgart is hired in 1947 as the first African-American woman who teaches school for the Clark County School District. We get other people like Sarah Ann Knight-Pretty. She's from Oklahoma. She moves here. She starts a couple of businesses. Lubertha Johnson moves here. I believe is from So we have a whole plethora of people, all walks of life from the black community. We have Jimmy Gay. I'm going to tell you a story about Jimmy Gay. Jimmy Gay moves here from Fordyce, Arkansas. I just told you that a lot of the workers in that plant, that BMI plant came from Fordyce, Arkansas. Well Jimmy Gay was a mortician, educated, had a college degree as well as had been sent to mortician school so he had both. He was married to Hazel Gay, an entrepreneur who owned several businesses in Fordyce. They it that they wanted to move here. Now Jimmy was raised by his parents but also raised by a white family in Fordyce. The white family that owned the furniture store, the bank, the golf course, the funeral home, and lots of other So when Jimmy Gay and his wife decided to move to Las Vegas in 1947, they were very happy. They were well situated. They purchased a house on B Street and he got ready to take the exam, except they would not allow him. Nevada, the testing board, would not allow Jimmy Gay to sit for the exam. While he was waiting to take the exam, he got a part-time job working at another funeral home owned by whites. He worked in the black community working at the recreational center. Great job for him because he was on the team of Jesse Owens in the 1939 Olympics. So we are talking about an athlete at that level. Jimmy Gaye also got a job at the Sands Hotel. And he was promoted because he knew how to play golf. He knew about financing. He just was a man of the hour. He was like a Renaissance man. So they were able to promote Jimmy Gay. Jimmy was able to get jobs for all kinds of people in the black community at the Sands Hotel. Nine years later, when they decided to allow an African American to sit for that exam, Jimmy Gay took the exam and passed it. he was no longer interested in owning a funeral home. The reason that he had come, he was working at the Sands doing very, very well. And he was always the chairperson for the largest fundraising events for the NAACP. Well, you know, I thought that I was going to be able to talk for 30 minutes and take you all the way through the 1970s, but that's not going to happen. So I have to stop here because I have one more minute just to tell you thank you for every fourth sunday morning at eight thirty for soul to soul thank you for listening

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you've been listening to special programming sponsored by public radio k u n v ninety one point five the content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of ninety one point five jazz and more the university of nevada las vegas or the one point five jazz and more the university of nevada las vegas or the Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Transcribed with Cockatoo