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Oral history interview with George Dickerson conducted by Perry Kaufman on an unknown date in the 1970s for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. Dickerson shares his impressions of Las Vegas, Nevada from when he first visited in the 1940s. Dickerson also discusses practicing law in Las Vegas and the development of the profession throughout the years.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Lubertha Johnson conducted by Perry Kaufman on April 17, 1972 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. Johnson discusses segregation in businesses and throughout Las Vegas, Nevada. Johnson then recalls her involvement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1940 and serving as president in the years 1953 and 1954.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Janet Garry conducted by Elyse Rozinsky on February 24, 1979 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. This interview covers the growth of Las Vegas, Nevada from 1952 to 1979. Garry recalls the early years of the television and the telephone. She also discusses her own personal experience of raising a family in Las Vegas.
Archival Collection
Rory Reid works in the Downtown Las Vegas building fully tattooed with a mural depicting a hand holding a bouquet of flowers of which the glowing central bloom is half brain and half heart. The story behind the mural is essential to understanding why the oldest of Landra and Harry Reid’s five children loves coming to work. Born in Alexandria, Virginia, he arrived in Las Vegas as a six-month-old with his parents and led a story-book life in the Reid house on Gretel Circle, down the street from Hansel Circle and right off Lilliput Lane. After attending Doris Hancock Elementary School, James Cashman Junior High School, and Ed W. Clark High School, he served a church mission in Argentina and studied international relations and Spanish and then law at Brigham Young University before returning to Las Vegas and joining Lionel Sawyer and Collins law firm. In this interview, Reid talks about administrative law, about leaving the firm to become an executive with Lady Luck Gaming Corporation, serving as Nevada Democratic Party chair for two years, and returning to Lionel Sawyer and Collins in 2000, where he remained until 2014. He shares his motivations for running for the District G seat on the Clark County Commission in 2002, and talks about the political climate in which he took office in 2003, a few months before fellow Commissioners Dario Herrera; Lance Malone; Erin Kenny, and chair Mary Kincaid Chauncey were indicted on federal charges following Operation G Sting. Following these highly public arrests, Reid focused on restoring faith in local government. In 2010, after two terms as Clark County Commissioner and Commission chair, Reid ran for Governor of Nevada as the Democratic nominee against Brian Sandoval. In that election, as Reid puts it, "the voters told me to do something else with my life," and he returned to his law practice. However, in June of 2014, his dear friend Jim Rogers passed away. The day after Rogers died Reid discovered that he was named co-trustee of Rogers's estate, along with his widow, Beverly. Reid and Beverly Rogers together founded The Rogers Foundation to be the primary advocate for public education in Nevada. The Rogers Foundation is housed in Downtown Las Vegas in the building tattooed with the bouquet. The mural-the Wall of Understanding-is The Rogers Foundation's answer to political calls for "building a wall" and a show of solidarity with the students they serve, many of whom are undocumented immigrants or have undocumented immigrant family members. For the man who helped restore the reputation of Clark County government and who emphatically declines to run for further public office, fulfilling the mission and the work of The Rogers Foundation is one of his greatest joys-along with his family; his beagle, Oakey; and watching Liverpool compete in the English Premier League (especially when Liverpool plays his brother's favorite team, Manchester United).
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