From the Dennis McBride Photograph Collection (PH-00263) -- LGBTQ+ events and organizations in Las Vegas, Nevada -- Digital images file. Notes from the donor, Dennis McBride: This event celebrated the 45th anniversary of the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union - NV, and was the occasion for presenting Clark County Commissioner [District E, Democrat] Chris Giunchigliani with the 2011 Emilie Wanderer Civil Libertarian Award. Individuals identified by the donor, Dennis McBride: David Parks [Nevada State Senator, District 7, Democrat (gay)]
Chris Phipps was born November 1, 1959 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was homeschooled until the age of 12, when he went to boarding school in New England. After graduating high school in 1977, he moved to California and came out as gay. Phipps stopped attending college for a few years to regain his social life, but he returned and received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Utah in 1986.
In 1943, Cleophis Hill Williams was a teenager visiting her mother who had moved to Las Vegas. For most of her young life she had lived with her parents in Muskogee, Oklahoma and Paul Spur/Douglas, Arizona. The same year that she visited Las Vegas, she met her future husband Tom Williams, with whom she had nine children, all born and raised on the Westside. Tom worked construction and built their first home on G Street. For Cleophis, she focused her life on raising her children and, whenever possible, finding some precious time to read.
From the Dennis McBride Photograph Collection (PH-00263) -- LGBTQ+ events and organizations in Las Vegas, Nevada -- Digital images file. Notes from the donor, Dennis McBride: Equality Won! Day was a celebration of the successful passage of transgender-inclusive legislation at the Nevada State Legislature during the 2011 session. Individuals identified by the donor, Dennis McBride: Lauren Scott [Republican (transgender)]; Paul Aizley [Nevada State Assemblyman, District 41 (Democrat)]; David Parks [Nevada State Senator, District 7, Democrat (gay)]; Jane Heenan [transgender activist]
From the Dennis McBride Photograph Collection (PH-00263) -- LGBTQ+ events and organizations in Las Vegas, Nevada -- Digital images file. Notes from the donor, Dennis McBride: This event celebrated the 45th anniversary of the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union - NV, and was the occasion for presenting Clark County Commissioner [District E, Democrat] Chris Giunchigliani with the 2011 Emilie Wanderer Civil Libertarian Award. Individuals identified by the donor, Dennis McBride: Dina Titus [U. S. Representative - NV (Democrat)]; Phil Hooper [ACLU-NV Administrative Director (gay)]
From the Syphus-Bunker Papers (MS-00169). The folder contains an original handwritten letter, an envelope, a typed transcription of the same letter, and a copy of original letter attached.
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.