Grant Sawyer

Gov. Grant Sawyer (1918-1996) began his distinguished public service career as the District Attorney in Elko in 1950. He served as a University Regent, before serving as governor for two terms (1958-1966). Sawyer was dedicated to civil rights and improving the lives of blacks in Nevada, and during his administration, much of the important civil rights legislation in Nevada was passed. Grant Sawyer was interviewed by Gary E. Elliot in 1991 and 1993.

     My inaugural address articulated my feelings about civil rights and called for action. My address to the first session of the legislature made the same plea, and I moved immediately to get legislation started to create a human relations commission with the authority to investigate civil rights abuses, and the power to take corrective action. To me it was clear that state government had a duty to ensure that all of Nevada's citizens had equal rights, and to do so without delay.
     Among our legislators, however, there was little sympathy for civil rights, and I had difficulty even finding someone to introduce the bill, which wound up dying in a senate committee. Fortunately, Maude Frazier had the guts to sponsor a second civil rights bill that, while less comprehensive in its objectives, stood a slightly better chance of passing. Assemblywoman Frazier was a remarkable lady, unaffected in the slightest by the political temperature, whatever it was, and totally immune to pressure. She was not answerable to any special interests, which in this case would have meant particularly the gaming industry and contractors and others with a stake in maintaining the racial status quo; she just did what she thought was right. Two days after my state-of-the-state message she introduced AB122, a bill which proposed to outlaw discrimination in public employment and forbid all contractors who did business with the state to discriminate on the grounds of race, national origin, religion, sex, whatever. There was some resistance, particularly in the senate, but the bill eventually passed, and I signed it into law in March.
     Although AB122 was a step in the right direction, it was not as strong a piece of civil rights legislation as I had hoped for, because it didn't address the pervasive racism in the private sector. Later that year I received a call from someone in the state department who told me that an ambassador from a black African nation, driving through the West, was attempting to check in to a Nevada hotel and being refused. I called the owner of the establishment and talked to him about the situation. He resisted, but eventually agreed to take care of it. This incident was representative of the overall situation in Nevada. Here, even an official person from another country could not stay in a hotel if he was black, which was so nonsensical that I could hardly believe it! And the hotel owner felt that he could behave that way with impunity until I called him.