Eugene Buford came to Las Vegas, Nevada from Birmingham, Alabama, when he was two years old with his mother and grandmother. He held a variety of jobs, including washing dishes at the Last Frontier and delivering ice to casinos like the Flamingo and the Stardust, and ultimately retired after thirty-six years with the Post Office. Buford's great grandmother, Mary Nettles, was instrumental in the formation and growth of the NAACP chapter in Las Vegas, and he recalls meetings in her house and his own role as president of the Junior League NAACP.
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Barbara Bates Kirkland was born 1934 in Shreveport, Louisiana. On a sunny day in 1946, Kirkland and her mother stepped off the train from Shreveport and onto the Western street of Fremont in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Kirkland’s mother, Atha Toliver, found employment as a maid. Toliver, who was determined that her daughter would get an education and a finer future, saw this as her opportunity to achieve this for her daughter. Later, she opened Eva’s Flower Basket, a floral shop that Kirkland would operate after retiring from teaching.
Person
Otis R. Harris Jr. was born May 19, 1941 to Otis R. Harris Sr. and Florence Harris. In the early 1940s, after an argument with a white person, Otis Harris's father decided to relocate from Texas to California. During the trip west, he stopped in Las Vegas where they were hiring at the Basic Magnesium plant. Though he only worked there briefly, Las Vegas became home to the Harris family. In this interview, Otis talks about his father's hard working nature and being raised with seven siblings in Las Vegas.
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On a sunny day in 1946, the train from Shreveport, Louisiana, stopped at The Plaza hotel in downtown Las Vegas like it always did. But on this particular day, Atha Toliver and her only child, twelve-year-old Barbara, stepped off the train and onto the dusty Western street of Fremont. Narrator Barbara Bates Kirkland recalls that event and living in Las Vegas for most of the next seven decades during this 2004 interview. Like many others who migrated from the South, Barbara Kirkland’s mother would find employment as a maid. A friend who already lived in Las Vegas had told her of the good paying jobs as private maid. So Atha who was determined that her daughter would get an education and a finer future saw this as her opportunity to achieve this for her daughter. Later, the entrepreneurial and creative mother opened Eva’s Flower Basket, a floral shop that Barbara operates in her retirement from teaching. Barbara returned to Louisiana for her senior year in high school, attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, and then returned to Las Vegas to teach first grade at Westside School. Barbara was active in the community, was a founding member of Les Femmes Douze, involved with Zion United Methodist Church and was friends with many of the early African American community leaders at the time. She talks about these, describes various neighborhoods where she lived and about raising her own two children in Las Vegas. Barbara was a founding member of Les Femmes Douze. AKA/Akateens.
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