It would have been difficult to imagine back in 1942 that a small boarding house on F Street and Adams Avenue—on the black side of a deeply segregated small town—would still be standing more than 70 years later, let alone part of a longstanding community conversation, even when it had been deemed condemnable so many years later.

In the 1950’s and 60s, an African-American woman from Texas named Genevieve Harrison ran a little guest house on the Westside of Las Vegas.

One by one, the three 2015 miss debutantes twirled past the tables filled with wide-eyed junior high school girls. The debs, in their ruffled ball gowns with lace bodices and sateen-finished full skirts, full-length gloves and tiaras, imparted a regal grace to the humble Westside church banquet hall.

It’s quiet at the corner of Jackson Avenue and F Street, where empty lots and vacant buildings define the historic landscape. A man rides by on his bicycle. A car occasionally passes through the intersection, and a security guard sits down on a chair outside the old New Town Tavern.

Every February, public schools turn their focus to the story of African Americans, under the banner of Black History Month. Mostly focusing on slavery and civil rights, students learn of the struggles and triumphs that shape the black experience. But as the tradition has carried on, it has also picked up detractors, who view it as outdated, even condescending.

Bucket lists. Thanks to a 2007 film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, it's become our go-to term in describing our own lists of things that we want to do or experience while we still can.

Nevada became a state on October 31, 1864, but Clark County wasn't part of it for another three years. Do some people in the north still regret that inclusion?

The director of the Oral History Research Center at UNLV is writing a book that will include a chapter titled: "Frank Sinatra Did Not Integrate Las Vegas: The Black Community's Attainment of Equal Public Accommodations."