Bailey, William Henry, 1927-2014

William H. "Bob" Bailey was born in 1927 and came to Las Vegas in 1955. First employed as an assistant producer and master of ceremonies in the first interracial hotel in Nevada, the Moulin Rouge, he describes the impact that hotel had on black entertainers during its brief existence. Bailey says the hotel brought life to the Westside where, in 1955, there were only a few telephones and the streets were largely unpaved. Bailey subsequently became a local radio and television personality and that role, for the most part, allowed him to circulate in the hotels and casinos without difficulty while other Black entertainers and spectators were denied entry. Black musicians had a particularly hard time finding work, not because they were not good musicians, but because they could not read music. Bailey's wife, Anna Bailey, was the first black girl dancer on the Strip in the 1961 production, "Nymphs of the Nile. Appointed by Governor Grant Sawyer to the Nevada State Equal Rights Investigatory Commission in 1961, Bailey served as its chairman and traveled throughout the state holding hearings.