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.

Estralita Williams is a native of Las Vegas. Her father was a pastor; she and her sisters sang with choir that backed up celebrity musicians such as Paul Anka. Estralita worked for the EOB.

Helen recalls coming to Las Vegas in the 1960s. She married early civil rights activist Jim Anderson in 1964. Helen was the first black female school principal in the Clark County School District.

Henry grew up on Westside as a self-described "wild" boy. He was employed as skycap for 32 years at McCarran International Airport.

Hazel Geran was an employee of the Equal Opportunity Board in 1972, and was still working there at time of this interview. Her first job in Las Vegas in 1948 was as a keno writer at Cotton Club on the Westside.

Lindell Blake is a self-taught dancer in the tradition of Sammy Davis Jr and others. He performed in Las Vegas at Sands, New York, New York, and Luxor hotels.

Interview with Nafeesa Sallee by John Grygo, March 21, 2013. Sallee moved to Las Vegas from Cleveland in 1978 and entered into a 34-year banking career from which she retired in 2013.