The Clinton Wright Photographs (1964-2018) contains black-and-white photographic negatives of various sizes, dating from 1964 to 1971. The images document the Black experience in Las Vegas, Nevada during the 1960s and 1970s, and capture scenes of everyday life in the historic Black neighborhood known as the Westside, social events such as weddings and parties, and events hosted by local churches. The collection also contains a photograph of Clinton Wright from 2017 when he visited the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives, and a memorial program for his wife, Joyce Wright, who passed away in 2018.
Joyce Moore's family moved to Las Vegas from Chicago in 1953, when she was eight years old. She attended Rancho High School, married and had three daughters, and currently lives in Las Vegas. Joyce's father was in the gaming industry and her mother was a nurse. Growing up in Las Vegas meant going to shows with her mother, spending summer days in the pool at the Showboat Hotel, and riding horses to the Last Frontier. While a teenager at Rancho High school, Joyce worked at several movie theaters including the Huntridge, went to school dances and marched in the Hellodorado Parade. After her divorce, Joyce returned to work to support herself and her children, first at the Daily Fax then later on the Strip at the Aladdin and Circus, Circus doing a variety of office and accounting jobs. As a lark she and a friend applied to work as cocktail waitresses at the MGM; she was hired and spent the next five years in a job that was by turns interesting, exhausting, frustrating and fun. This interview covers several periods of Joyce's life - her childhood, teen years, and early adult life - and what it was like to grow up, live and work in Las Vegas in from the mid-1950s until the mid-1970s.