Oral history interview with Claytee D. White conducted by Stefani Evans on November 2, 2023 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Claytee D. White, founding directory of the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries, celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the OHRC by contributing her oral history to the collection.
She begins by explaining how the system of sharecropping worked in her family near rural Ahoskie, North Carolina, and she talks about the field work involved in raising cotton, tobacco, corn, and peanuts. The fifth of eight children and the first daughter, she shares memories of going into town with her mother, of admiring her women teachers, and of attending North Carolina Central College (now University) for two years before moving to Washington, D.C., and working for the telephone company.
After recalling her two years in D.C. and 22 years in Los Angeles, California, she describes "running away" to Las Vegas, Nevada in the early 1990s. Here, at the History department at UNLV, she recalls learning to conduct oral histories. White shares memories of her first interviews with Hazel and Jimmy Gay and Lucille Bryant. She talks of matriculating to the College of William and Mary for her PhD and of returning to Bertie County to live with her mother and administer the office of The Shaw University Center for Alternative Programs in Education (CAPE). She describes how she was offered the position of OHRC founding director, why it matters that she was an "opportunity hire," and how it feels to be the only Black person in a room.
Archival Collection
The collection includes materials from the Nevada Test Site (1955-1967) including newsletters published by the Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Co., Inc. and photographs of Southern Nevada flora, fauna, and archaeology. It also includes photographs of test explosions at the Nevada Test Site, as well as photographs documenting a visit from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials and a visit from John F. Kennedy to the Nevada Test Site. The collection also contains an oversized poster of an atomic explosion and one of a nuclear rocket development station.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Lavern Cummings and Tony Midnite conducted by Dennis McBride on August 29, 2000 for the Las Vegas Gay Archives Oral History Project. In the interview, Cummings and Midnite discuss their work as female impersonators in Las Vegas, Nevada during the late 1960s and 1970s. They also talk about other impersonators and performance venues in Las Vegas and around the United States. They explain the distinctions between transgender and straight performers, and the perceptions of transgender and straight audience members. Other subjects Cummings and Midnite cover include their early lives and arrivals to Las Vegas, and the history of sex reassignment surgeries beginning in the 1930s.
Archival Collection
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Oral history interview with Frankie Perez conducted by Elsa Lopez and Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez on November 05th, 2018 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Perez speaks about the importance of sports, and the lack of Latinx representation in teachers during high school. Perez then discusses being placed on medical hold in the military, how his transition affected his physical tests, how the 2016 election may have impacted transgendered people in the military, and how everyday military personnel feel about transgendered people serving in the military. The interview concludes with Perez discussing the Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgendered, and Queer (LGBTQ) scene in Las Vegas, Nevada and about how culture impacts which clubs members of LBGTQ community would visit.
Archival Collection
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Oral history interview with Wilma Freemyer conducted by Suzanne Haag on February 22, 1979 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. Freemyer discusses early Las Vegas, Nevada’s history during the 1930's and the
Archival Collection
Gay Pride 1999 at Sunset Park; Photographer: Dennis McBride. (5-8-99)
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Gay Pride 1999 at Sunset Park; Photographer: Dennis McBride. (5-8-99)
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