Soul to Soul

0:00:00
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.

0:00:18
This is Soul to Soul, a radio show that is a free-for-all of positive energy. 830 on the fourth Sunday morning here at KUNV. I am Clay T. White. Today we're going to talk about one of these areas that I always list. I say we're going to talk about history and books and music and politics. Today is history. It is the African American or the black experience here in Las Vegas. Last time I stopped at the end of 1949. So today I'm going to talk about the 1950s. 1949 ends with Jim Crow in full regalia. All of it. All of Jim Crow. Blacks live only on the West Side, cannot enter the casinos downtown and on the strip unless you're working a job in the back of the house? Or are you an entertainer? Financing for houses are almost non-existent. There are many occupations that are closed to black Americans, but the migration continues. Blacks come by car and all kinds of other modes of transportation. The Nevada Test Site, beginning in the 1950s, began to apply, began to employ African Americans, women and men, in various job categories. When Viola Johnson arrived in 1942, jobs were available to most black women as domestic work. That was the work in the back of the house. That's what I mean by the back of the house. You're cleaning hotel rooms, working in linen rooms, those kinds of activities. Or you are a porter cleaning the casino floors. Depending on the gaming establishment, But there was no ironing, cooking, childcare, and all of the other domestic work that black women had done for years and years. In small towns like Fort Ice, Arkansas, Tallulah, Louisiana, small places in Mississippi, towns throughout the South. But now there was an added component. 1950s, these African American women became members of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, giving them more power, giving them more opportunities, more benefits, better health care. So things were looking up. Even though we know that Jim Crow was that period of time where who are blacks did not have the rights that they deserved, still we see progress. Let me tell you how Viola Johnson described what it was like here when she came in the 1940s. Seven of us lived in this one-room tent. The men worked different shifts at Basic Magnesium, Inc. So when they were sleeping, others were at work. Some of us would sleep outside under the trees. We cooked on a two-burner oil stove on the inside and a huge wood stove on the outside, about 15 feet away with our neighbors and another tent. So that's how African Americans lived during that heyday of the migration. It changes somewhat as black families began to build houses. And in the 1950s, things began to change even more. So let's get into the 1950s. Lucille Bryant came from Tallulah, Louisiana. I got here on the 4th of October in 1953. My cousin Gladys was going to the Aljuris Hotel when I got here that morning to quit her job because she had found a better one. So she said, you want to go with me? And I said yes. We got there and I asked the housekeeper, do you want somebody to work today? And she said yes. And took me upstairs and showed me the rooms and what had to be done. When that lady left the room, I got on my knees and gave God thanks. Eight dollars a day and working in the shade. In Tallulah, Louisiana, Lucille could earn maybe five dollars a week, sometimes a little more. Now, as we talked about last week in the 1940s, we talked about African-Americans African Americans migrating not just working blue collar workers, but the whole gamut of the African American community migrated to Las Vegas. First black doctor came in 1954, Dr. Charles I. West. Prior to Dr. West, there was a chiropractor named Dr. D. Hay. He had arrived in the 1940s. The first black dentist, 1955, Dr. James B. McMillan. First black attorney, 1959, Charles Keller. And I'm going to return to Charles Keller at the end of my presentation today because he does not arrive until 1959. The mid-1950s, though, we get some construction that maybe makes a turn in the economy of the black community. The first black housing development, Berkeley Square, designed by Paul R. Williams. because I talked about Carver Park and the building of that housing project where African-Americans lived at the basic town site when they were working at basic magnesium. So Berkeley Square was designed by the same architect, Paul R. Williams. When I interviewed Dr. Charles I. West's son, John West, he told me this. This is one of his quotes. It was a case of necessity. Actually, because here you have this hotel coming up, the Moulin Rouge, now we're just completing that first nice housing area on the west side, and it is called Berkeley Square. It is between D and H, and it's over by Burns. We had two of those houses. So Dr. West actually purchased two houses on Wyatt because he had a friend, Dr. MacMillan, who wasn't here yet. So Dr. MacMillan had a house, but he was still in the Army Reserve because he was still part of that Korean War conflict. My mother, Dottie West, was taking care of his house down the street from ours on Wyatt. Then there was another friend, Jim Goodlow, who was a former police officer in Los Angeles who had a house and wasn't living here yet. He was on Freedman Street. There was a home that his mother would also rent out. Della Reese was one of the people who rented from us. The Treniers also rented. And I don't know if you remember Earl Graham. He was a wonderful entertainer. He also rented from my parents. Archie Moore, the boxing champion, rented from us. My dad was also the ring physician for fighters that came to Las Vegas to fight. And some of those chorus girls also rented from us. Now this is when John is younger, he said, and I used to drive them to work. That was a little side hustle of mine, and I would charge them about 50 cents apiece. So the world is shifting. The mid-1950s see this shift beginning to happen. We have new jobs and those jobs are now at the Nevada Test Site. The work at Basic Magnesium Incorporated ended. There are other plants in that area that also employed some black men, but now African-American men are working at the Nevada Test Site, as well as the Strip and all kinds of other jobs here in the city. But it's the Nevada Test Site that makes a difference. It's a federal installation, federal dollars coming into the black community, so we are seeing a great difference. So Berkeley Square opens in 1954, 1955. The houses are adding to the other houses in the community. This housing development has started, the discussion for it had started way back in 1947, and now it's just getting off the ground. But it's at a time when housing is really needed. Twenty-two acres of property is set aside for this, 149 lots, and this grows because there are really about 164 houses that are actually built. We don't know how most of these homes were financed. We know that a person who worked along with Paul Williams to build this was a person from Berkeley, California. He acted as the financier. a media person, a developer, and a civil rights advocate. His name was Berkeley, and that's where Berkeley Square gets its name. So this is our first African-American subdivision that you can still see today. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Some of the homes have been kept wonderfully all through the years. 1954, 55, some of the homes are still very, very beautiful. Interviewed a woman yesterday whose family purchased one of those homes. She still has it in her portfolio of properties, and she still keeps it up to a wonderful level. Now, at the same time, and most of you are waiting for me to say this, I'm sure, but at the same time, we're also constructing the Moulin Rouge Hotel Casino. Now there are lots of other properties, gaming places here in the community. So don't think the Moulin Rouge is the very first gaming property in the West Side. Not true. Avenue starting in the 1940s had all kinds of nightclubs, small gaming venues that had poker, slot machines, blackjack, and craps. So this is not unusual to have a gaming facility in the West Side. The Moulin Rouge is different because it can rival any of those downtown or on the Las Vegas Strip. So that's why you hear so much about the Moulin Rouge. It is this beautiful venue where African Americans now don't have to live in boarding houses when they come here for divorces or they come here to entertain on the strip. Samuel Davis, Jr. tells us about staying at the Harrison House. We also know that he stayed at Mrs. Shaw's apartment sometimes. The Harrison House was not that big, so there were other places that African Americans could live as well as those in Berkeley Square and places like the Harrison House. So Mrs. Shaw's apartments was one of those places along with the Harrison House. Sammy Davis, Jr. writes about Mrs. Harris. He said when they went there to rent the room for the first time, he and his uncle and his father, he said Mrs. Harrison charged them so much that they said to her, well, we could stay at the Sands. And she said, well, go and stay at the Sands. Mrs. Harrison knew that it was impossible for them to stay at the Sands at that current time, but she was a businesswoman, and she had a business to run just like the Sands and the Dunes and all the others. But now, 1955, May of 1955, the Moulin Rouge opens. It opens to the standing room only crowd. So you see people like Tallulah Bankhead, Frank Sinatra, and all other just a plethora of Hollywood stars in the audience that night. And your host for the evening is Joe Lewis, the heavyweight champion of the world. And in some minds in the 1940s, 1950s, early 50s, and they would listen to the boxing matches on the radio. That's how popular Joe Lewis was. water because Joe Louis had beat all of those opponents. So now the person who's greeting you at this plush place on Bonanza right there in the black community was Joe Louis, the champion of the world. There was a clothing store in the Moulin Rouge that sold women's dresses? Last month when I talked to you about this, I told you about Jimmy Gay. Well, Jimmy Gay's wife, Hazel, ran that women's clothing store in the Moulin Rouge. So this is the kind of place that we are in now. It is opening night. You've got the first line of black dancers in Las Vegas. And we have dancers like Anna Bailey and Norma and all of these other dancers who've danced all over the world. They've danced in London and Paris and New York and Los Angeles. And now they're right here on the West Side dancing in a line and their images graced the front of Life magazine in June of 1955. That's how popular they became. So why is this place so popular? It was only open for five, maybe five and a half months. Most people don't know that. That was the heyday period. Yes, it opened again right after the heyday period, but during that heyday period, that period of time that everybody talks about, it was only five and a half months. But they did something at the Moulin Rouge that was unexpected. Those standing room only crowds were the way of the world at that point. But the owners of the Rouge wanted more. They wanted to pull people over from the strip. The last show on the Las Vegas strip was a midnight show. So by 2 o'clock in the morning, all the shows are over. So the owners of the Moulin Rouge decided to put on a show at 2.30 in the morning. So these beautiful black dancers, this black singer Bob Bailey, singer MC, they now put on an additional show that pulls the entertainers here entertaining from all over the country. It pulls them over to the West Side. 2.30 in the morning, you get the high rollers who are following these entertainers over and everybody wants to be in the Moulin Rouge. Suddenly it closes. Five months, five and a half months, the Rouge closes. People show up to work one morning to prepare for the day, to prepare for the restaurants and to prepare for the dancing, the practicing, they all have to go into making the show for that evening, there's a padlock on the door. People say that it was padlocked because subcontractors were not paid for all of the construction work that they had done. They were not paid for all of it. Other people say that there are other reasons. We think maybe there are some other reasons, like the competition had just gotten a little too keen and that's why the Moulin Rouge was closed. Now yes, it opened again immediately. Leofra opens it and there are several owners over the years, but it was never equal to that heyday period. And that's why people talk about it today. Because it was such a wonderful, wonderful era of entertainment here in Las Vegas. So I told you that I was going to talk about Charles Keller. sent to Las Vegas by Thurgood Marshall. Why is that so important? Thurgood Marshall worked for the NAACP in New York. And one of the mandates that he deemed for himself for the NAACP to attain was to have at least one black attorney in every state in the union. Many states did not have an African-American attorney. Nevada was one of those states without a black attorney. Durgan Marshall encouraged his friend Charles Keller, a civil rights attorney that he had known for years in New York. And at that time, New York is where the NAACP headquarters were. They're no longer there, but at that time that's where they were. Charles Keller agreed to move to Nevada. He had accumulated all kinds of income property over the years. He began to sell off his holdings, had a rather large cashier's check when he moved to Las Vegas. He went into one of our banks here to open an account to deposit his money. And it took several minutes. It took quite a while as a matter of fact. So he was patiently waiting. And then the police came in. And the police said, we are a little concerned. No black man should have this kind of money. So we just want to investigate. Unfortunately, Charles Keller began to laugh. And I think that laughter probably caused some other problems in his life here. But soon it was all worked out. I'm sure that they called everybody in New York, and they were able to, yes, verify that this cashier's check was authentic and that Charles Keller actually had the amount of money written on the check well over $100,000, we don't know the exact amount of that check. We have heard $175,000. We have heard sums larger than that. But Charles Keller has to wait a year before he can sit for the bar exam. Arrives in 1959 because he wants to take the exam in 1960. In 1959, he also prepares by taking classes, real estate classes to get his real estate licenses, as well as he volunteers to work in the office of the NAACP. So he becomes well known in the community even before he takes the exam. He helps the volunteers at the NAACP work on various issues. And because he's sent here to work for the state of Nevada, he not only gets to know people here in Las Vegas, he also travels back and forth to the Reno area, and he gets to know people who are also protesting for civil rights in that area. So he's well-known throughout the state. and he has a lot of great rights in that area. So he's well-known throughout the state. 1960, and yes, I've gone away from the 1950s just one year. 1960, he sits for the exam. Results return, and Charles Keller does not get his results. So he inquires, and they tell him that his score is too high, that he must have cheated. So you can look in the records and you can see the fight that he has to mount in order to get his licenses. He fights for five years and he doesn't really get his licenses to practice law until 1965, even though he has passed the exam in 1960. In the intervening years, two other attorneys out of Howard University come here, Robert Reed and Earl White, and they pass the bar exam, and they are licensed in Nevada before Charles Keller. I still always refer to Charles Keller as our first black American attorney because he really was. He just wasn't granted his licenses. You can find all of that paperwork. You can go online and start searching, and you can find all of that paperwork. So I just have a few more minutes, and I want to give you a little taste of what I am going to talk about next time when we come back. I'm going to talk about the 1960s. The 1960s you don't hear about because most people don't understand how important the Economic Opportunity Board was. So in 1960, integration takes place in Las Vegas. And then in the mid-60s, we get the Economic Opportunity Board. That is that funding umbrella that brings in federal dollars into Clark County and is able to pay for all kinds of projects to employ people. Out of that comes the first black radio station, KCEP. Uh-oh, I probably shouldn't have said that because today I'm at KUNV, but that's what happens out of the EOB. And the 1960s end with a riot. And I want to tell you about that revolution, about that riot. Why would it happen now as things are getting better and better and better? Maybe it wasn't fast enough. So please join me, 4th Sunday mornings at 830 Soul to Soul is a free-for-all of positive energy, where I talk to guests and sometimes just by myself about books and food and music and all the good things of life. Thank you so much for joining me today.

0:26:43
You've been listening to special programming

0:26:46
sponsored by Public Radio KUNV 91.5. The content of this program 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. of Higher Education. ♪♪♪

Transcribed with Cockatoo