Search Results
Transcript of Interview with Barbara Kirkland
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Archival Collection
Description
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.
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"Our History": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald
Date
Archival Collection
Description
From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Drafts for the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice file. On the need for more Black history courses.
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"The Sunset Kid": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald
Date
Archival Collection
Description
From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Drafts for the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice file. On unacknowledged Black cowboys and soldiers.
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"And Justice for All: Part III": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald
Date
Archival Collection
Description
From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Drafts for the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice file. On law enforcement mistreatment/discrimination Mexican Americans.
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"The Recruit": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald
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Archival Collection
Description
From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Drafts for the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice file. On colleges needing to recruit Black faculty like they recruit Black athletes.
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Transcript of interview with Samuel and Sherrill Coleman by Claytee White, February 12, 2016 and February 22, 2016
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Archival Collection
Description
Sherrill and Samuel Coleman moved to Las Vegas during the 1990s after both enjoying a full life and numerous careers in other parts of the United States. They met each other through church in 1998 and married each other in April 1999. Now retired, both Samuel and Sherrill remain active in their church community. Samuel Coleman was born in Durant, Mississippi in 1928 to a sharecropping family. His father died when he was 13 months old, leaving his mother to raise seven children by herself. Over time, his family slowly migrated to Chicago and he joined them when he was 15. For eight months, Samuel worked a number of different jobs until he began to work for Burlington Railroad as a four cook. The United States Army drafted him in 1951 and sent him overseas to work in a motor pool for a military hospital in Korea, despite his status as a conscientious objector. At war’s end, he returned to work for Burlington. During his last 17 years with the railroad, Samuel successfully petitioned to join the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the union for railroad cooks, porters, and waiters, to improve the working and sleeping conditions at Burlington Railroad. He retired from the railroads in the 1970s and chose to pursue other careers. Until his official retirement in 1993, Samuel worked in real estate, as the owner of a liquor store, a firefighter, a restaurant inspector, and a deacon for his church. His daughter from his first wife moved to Vegas to pursue a career as a teacher and after a number of visits, Samuel decided to follow her in 1999. Sherrill Coleman was born in Newton, Kansas in 1941. Like many other African American women in her community, she worked as a housekeeper for a number of years. She and her first husband moved to Los Angeles County in 1964 where she took a temporary job in the elections department of the local government. In 1967, Sherrill became a file clerk for Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Social Services. By the time she left the department, she was middle management in the auditing department. She moved to Vegas in 1993.
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"Billy Bob and Leroy": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald
Date
Archival Collection
Description
From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Drafts for the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice file. On a different future for Black veterans as opposed white counterparts.
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"The Stereotypic Image of the Jew in Hollywood Films": manuscript draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald
Date
Archival Collection
Description
From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Unpublished manuscripts file.
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"Black Entertainers in Las Vegas in the Era of Segregation 1940-1960": manuscript draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald
Date
Archival Collection
Description
From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Unpublished manuscripts file.
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"Chapter 7: Civil Rights in a Resort City": manuscript by Roosevelt Fitzgerald
Date
Archival Collection
Description
From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Unpublished manuscripts file. Pages 274 -313 of unknown manuscript.
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