A ” We Need to Talk” panel discussion on critical race theory at UNLV’s Greenspun Hall Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022.

The casual elegance of architect Paul Revere Williams’ Southern California mansions attracted a host of celebrity clients, including Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Yet today the architect is celebrated as much for his improbable journey and the obstacles he overcame as for the remarkable quality of his work. Born in 1894, Williams, the orphan son of an African American fruit and vegetable merchant, would rise from his humble beginnings and the racial prejudice of his day to become one of America’s most respected architects.

The architect’s achievements transformed the landscape of Nevada but were obscured by racism. Janna Ireland’s exhibition changes that.

The Moulin Rouge Hotel in the city’s Westside District served as a brief monument to racial justice in the 1950s.

During the Jim Crow era, Josephine Baker left the United States and moved to Paris, France where she was treated in a professional, inclusive manner. There, she could entertain in front of integrated audiences, unlike only performing for segregated audiences in this country.

Before Nathalie Martinez graduated from UNLV in 2021, she worked as a student oral historian for the Latinx Voices Project, collecting oral stories in English and Spanish about the eastside of Las Vegas.

A panel of local leaders, community activists and educators looked to the past and the future during a discussion Saturday about Las Vegas’ Historic Westside.

In honor of Black History Month and, as chair of the Boulder City Democratic Club, I was afforded the opportunity to invite Claytee White, director of the Oral History Research Center at the UNLV libraries, to participate in our monthly Zoom meeting.