University of Nevada
Oral History Program
Mail Stop 324
Reno, NV 89557-0099
775/784-6932
Fax: 775/784-1365
E-mail: unohp@unr.edu
Hours: 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Room 109 of the Mack Social Science Building on the University of Nevada, Reno campus
Black Entertainers
With the development of the Las Vegas Strip in the 1940s and 1950s into an entertainment destination and the growth of the casino areas in Reno, Elko, and Hawthorne in the 1950s, floorshows became a means to attract tourists to Nevada's hotels and casinos. Many hotel-casinos employed black entertainers to perform at these floorshows, but famous black celebrities were not immune from the affects of segregation in Nevada. In Las Vegas and Reno, black performers such as Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, and others could not stay in or eat at the venues in which they performed. Stars such as Louis Armstrong were forced to use the rear entrances of many of these buildings. Since these entertainers could not stay in the hotel-casinos, they were forced to stay at private homes in Reno or at all-black establishments or homes on the Westside, which developed as the primary black residential and business community in Las Vegas during the 1930s and 1940s. This situation earned Nevada the epithet “The Mississippi of the West” from black entertainers. Josephine Baker, a celebrated star of stage and screen, challenged segregationist practices in Las Vegas by using her status to allow local blacks to attend her show at the El Rancho. Segregation did not only affect black entertainers but also those who worked at hotel-casinos at the time. Their experiences offer a different perspective on how black entertainers were treated. Morton Saiger worked at the Last Frontier in Las Vegas throughout this era and was responsible for the transportation of entertainers back and forth between the Westside and the club. In Reno, Yvonne Davis worked at Harolds Club in the 1950s and 1960s and saw firsthand how segregation affected black entertainers in that community. |
