Kirkland, Barbara Bates (1934)

Barbara Bates Kirkland was born 1934 in Shreveport, Louisiana. On a sunny day in 1946, Kirkland and her mother stepped off the train from Shreveport and onto the Western street of Fremont in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Kirkland’s mother, Atha Toliver, found employment as a maid. Toliver, 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, she opened Eva’s Flower Basket, a floral shop that Kirkland would operate after retiring from teaching.

Kirkland 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.

Kirkland 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.