Hattie Canty was born and raised in St. Stephens, Alabama. She moved to California as a young woman to seek employment, and married and started a family. Canty's family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in the late 1960s and she found work as a maid for the Thunderbird Hotel and later the Maxim Hotel and Casino. Canty became a Culinary Union Local 226 member. Over the years, she became involved in securing better salaries for women and increasing the number of African Americans in high-paying positions in the casino industry.

Sidney Roxton Whitmore is the son of Roxton and Adella Whitmore. He was born in St. Thomas, Nevada on December 31, 1921. He graduated from Overton High School and served in the Army during World War II. He met and married his wife, Suzette Fortune Ziza, in 1946 while stationed in Algeria. After the war, the couple returned to the United States and Whitmore earned his law degree at George Washington University. He practiced law in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas City Commission appointed him city attorney in 1960 and he was later reelected.

Ernest M. Fountain was born in Tallulah, Louisiana. After finishing his bachelor's degree in business administration, Fountain moved to Las Vegas, Nevada to study banking and finance. He began his banking career in 1976 when he started working for Valley Bank of Nevada. At the time, he was one of only two black lending officers in the state of Nevada. He is the former Director of the Las Vegas Minority Business Development Center, and is also the founder and past president of the Black Business Council of Nevada, formed in 1991.