Information
Narrator
Date
2014-10-23
Description
Steven and Wendy Hart discuss an instance in which Sylvia Hart and Pearl Bailey defied segregation in the Flamingo hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
Digital ID
jhp000658
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I agree.Steven and Wendy Hart discuss an instance in which Sylvia Hart and Pearl Bailey defied segregation in the Flamingo hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
Steven and Wendy Hart oral history interview, 2010 October 23, 2010 November 06. OH-02181. [Audio recording]. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/d19w0cq4h
English
WENDY: Mom would always come to the hotel like on a Saturday night and Dad was up in the showroom. STEVE: She wanted to watch him. WENDY: They would always go out afterwards and they'd always go out with some of entertainers because most of the entertainers?Pearl Bailey is a prime example and I love this story because your mom would tell this story so beautifully. But in the Flamingo there was a beautiful stairway, red carpet stairway that led to the showroom. My mother in law, God bless her, was four eleven on a good day. Pearl Bailey was quite a bit larger than my mother in law. And, of course, Pearl Bailey's husband, Louie Bellson, was not African American; he was Caucasian. He could go anywhere, but, of course, she couldn't. So one Saturday night? STEVE: One of the great drummers of the era, Louie Bellson. WENDY: So one Saturday night Mom had gone up to the hotel and they were all going to go to the Moulin Rouge after, which is about the only place you could commingle in those days. Mom and Pearl Bailey decided that they were going to walk down the stairs into the casino. But before they were going to be so bold as to walk down the stairs in the casino, Pearl Bailey put her beautiful long mink coat on my mother in law, which pretty much trailed about three to four feet behind her because she was so short. Arm and arm her and Pearl Bailey marched down these steps and every head in the casino turned because they were absolutely shocked that anyone had the nerve to actually do that because it was unheard of and it wasn't allowed. But they didn't care. They were pretty bold.