Oral history interview with Gloria Dixon conducted by Claytee D. White on May 2, 2022 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: A Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Dixon recalls her childhood growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dixon attended St. Christopher and Bishop Gorman High School, and recalls her parents' involvement in the New Jerusalem Church. Dixon discusses writing grants to help with community education programs, and using her experience as a hospice nurse for the last thirty years to help communicate information about public health crises. Throughout the interview, Dixon shares information about the businesses in the Las Vegas Black community on Jackson Street.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with William O'Neill McCurdy Sr. by Claytee D. White on January 26, 2022 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: A Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, McCurdy describes his childhood gorwing up in Las Vegas, Nevada, graduating from Valley High School, and attending Western Nevada College in Carson City, Nevada. He worked for many years for the Parks and Recreation department, and has served on numerous boards including the Citizens' Advisory for Regional Transportation (RTC), Habitat for Humanity Board of Director, Mineral County Economic Advisory Committee, City of Las Vegas Community Block Grant Advisory Board, and Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority Commission. Currently, McCurdy owns McCurdy & McCurdy Media Group, a political consulting and advertising firm which has assisted numerous political candidates in fulfilling their dreams of helping to govern Las Vegas, Clark County, the State of Nevada, and even in the United States Congress.
Archival Collection
The Barbara Tabach Papers (1978-2022) mainly contain project files kept by oral historian Barbara Tabach throughout her experiences managing different oral history community documentation projects for the Oral History Research Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) from 2010 to 2022. Oral history projects represented in this collection include
Archival Collection
The Opus Dance Ensemble of Las Vegas Collection (1988-1996) contains the newsletters and bi-annual concert programs for the Las Vegas, Nevada nonprofit dance organzation. The organization was comprised of dancers and choreographers from various leading Las Vegas production shows, and held bi-annual performances at the Tropicana Hotel.
Archival Collection
The Summa Corporation Summerlin Development Presentation Materials (approximately 1990-1999) consist of presentation slides and architectural and landscape renderings for developing the Las Vegas, Nevada community of Summerlin.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Verlean Whitley conducted by Jasmine Smith on November 26, 2014 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. Whitley talks about her parents and upbringing in Arkansas and traveling to Las Vegas, Nevada by bus in her late teens to live with relatives. She continues discussing her marriage and work, her church and community activities, and efforts to encourage voting in the late 1960s. She also mentions her involvement with the NAACP, her concerns about the closure of F Street in 2008 and her hopes for the revitalization of the Westside community.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Jinetta Daniels conducted by Rani Dunn on November 30, 2014 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Daniels talks about her upbringing in Mississippi and traveling to Las Vegas, Nevada by bus in 1962. She continues discussing her work as a maid at the Dunes Hotel, her membership in the Victory Baptist Church, and comments on various church and community leaders in the Westside. She also mentions her concerns about the closure of F Street in 2008 and her hopes for the revitalization of the Westside community.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Geraldine Kirk-Hughes conducted by Larry Sampson on November 28, 2014 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview Kirk-Hughes relates her birth and upbringing in Simmersport, Louisiana, becoming a teen mother, earning a GED and earning her first college degree before marrying and moving to Greece and Dubai. She then explains how she returned to the United States to earn her masters degree before moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1978. She discusses her second marriage, her decision to attend law school, and her decision to go into private practice instead of working for a law firm. She talks about cases she worked on, people in the community she knew, and the effects of discrimination on her work and career. She ends by talking about her third marriage and sharing thoughts on how the Las Vegas African American community has lost some of the cohesiveness and unity of earlier decades.
Archival Collection
Oral history interviews with Melvin Green conducted by Robin Fults on November 28 and December 1, 2014 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Green talks about growing up in Bonita, Louisiana and his education through college. He then talks about working for an architectural firm in Connecticut before being recruited to join a firm in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1986. He relates numerous stories about his childhood, discusses problems with discrimination and segregation in the South, and an example of discrimination from a Las Vegas furniture store in the late 1980s. He expands on his views of religion, spirituality, and politics, the importance of travel, of hard work, and commitment. He also gives examples of architectural projects that he has created.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Clarence Ray conducted by Eleanor L. Walker in 1991 for the African American in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Ray provides details of his ancestry and upbringing, his education, and race relations in the western United States before 1930. He then moves on to his first visit to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1922, and his movements before settling permanently in the 1940s. He explains that the main source of employment for the relatively small Black population during the 1920s and early 1930s was the railroad, but a number were also in business. Mr. Ray provides thumbnail sketches of many of the early residents, and is particularly informative about "Mammy" Pinkston, Mary Nettles, the Stevens family, and the Ensley family. Systemic racial discrimination against Blacks developed in southern Nevada during the 1930s, and Mr. Ray provides some useful details on this along with his discussion of his career in gaming and his social and political activities.
Archival Collection