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I agree.Part of an interview with Lucille Bryant conducted by Claytee D. White on December 13, 1995. In the clip, Bryant compares economic opportunities in Tallulah and Las Vegas in the 1950s.
Lucille Bryant oral history interview, 1995 December 13, 1996 March 01. OH-00136. [Audio recording] Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
English
Now, I know you came here because of job opportunities and that you already had relatives that told you about it, but did you ever know about any recruiters from Las Vegas, going to Tallulah, to recruit people to come out here to work? No. I never knew of that because they were leaving Tallulah as fast as they got some money to travel on. They were leaving as fast as they could. No, I never, unless you could call people like me, or others, who were writing back and telling them. I wrote and told all my relatives, try to get out here. They are making so much money out here and as I said several times before, when I came out here, I got here on the 4th of October of '53 and I got a job the very first day, you know, at the Algiers Hotel. When I got here that morning, my cousin Gladys was getting ready to go out to the Algiers Hotel where she had been working and she was going out there to quit her job because she had found another job. So, she said, you want to go with me? I said, O.K. We got out there and, I can't remember the housekeeper's name, but, I asked her, do you need someone to work today? And she said, yes. So, she took me upstairs to show me the rooms and what I was supposed to do, clean the rooms and do the bathroom, I think it was only about seven or eight rooms a day and something like that and she said it paid $8 a day. What? $8 day, Lord I was so grateful, I was so thankful, $8 a day, yes, I'll take the job! And I said, Gladys, you go on back, I'm going to work today, come by and pick me up this evening. When the lady left out of that room and came on back downstairs, you know, because she, I'm in the room now, I got on my knees, I got on my knees right there in the Algiers Hotel and I gave God thanks. $8 a day and working in the shade. You know, not back-breaking in the sun. $8 a day, all this money. I wrote back and I said, everybody come on 15 out here. White folks gone crazy. They're giving us $8 a day for making a bed and cleaning a bathroom.