NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY LAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE LAS VEGAS I REMEMBER INTERVIEW WITH DR. JAMES B. McMILLAN Taken At KNPR Studios 5151 Boulder Highway Las Vegas, Nevada TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 2 MR. WRIGHT: First of all, we need to get your name on tape. DR. McMILLAN: Okay. I'm Dr. James B. McMillan. MR. WRIGHT: Welcome and thank you very much for joining with us on The Las Vegas I Remember. One thing that people are going to be very interested about all of our guests is what brings them to Las Vegas and a little bit about their background. So let's go back and just get a little bit about your youth. DR. McMILLAN: Oh, my youth. My mother and I left Mississippi years ago and went to New York and then Philadelphia. And finally, we moved to Pontiac and finally Hamtramck, Michigan, stayed there. And I was raised through grade school there, and then I went to high school and college at University of Detroit. MR. WRIGHT: My geography fails me a little bit. Where is Hamtramck? In relation to what? DR. McMILLAN: Hamtramck is a Polish town that's in the inside of Detroit, and about 98 percent Polish people lived there when we lived there. And it's a free-standing town by itself. And then there's another one, Highland Park and then what have you. MR. WRIGHT: How did a family from Mississippi via Philadelphia end up in Hamtramck, then? DR. McMILLAN: Well, my mother's sister lived in TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 3 Pontiac, Michigan. And we left Mississippi, my mother and I. We went to New York because she was a seamstress, and she had been practicing medicine and things like that, and she felt that she could make a living there. Usually, in the South trains run either to New York or to Chicago or Saint Louis, and that's the expressway out of the South back in those days, back then. MR. WRIGHT: So about what year was it, then, that you ended up in Michigan? DR. McMILLAN: We ended up in Michigan in about 1929 or '30. MR. WRIGHT: Just before the Depression. DR. McMILLAN: Just before the Depression. MR. WRIGHT: And your mother was, I understand, involved a little bit in politics. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. After we had moved to Philadelphia, we moved from Philadelphia to Detroit. And when we got into Hamtramck, she got involved in Pontiac. In a small town, politics was quite a thing to get involved in. And she was a Democrat, and you'd get a chance to be able to get a job or you know the important people in town. MR. WRIGHT: This is sort of classic Democratic machine politics? DR. McMILLAN: That's correct. Yeah, that's the thing. She would hold meetings at our house, and she would go TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 4 to meetings and talk to the candidates. MR. WRIGHT: And I think your father was -- you sort of reestablished connections with your father; am I correct in that? DR. McMILLAN: No, this is my stepfather. MR. WRIGHT: Your stepfather, okay. DR. McMILLAN: My original father died in 1918 in the flu epidemic. And when we left Mississippi, going to New York and Philadelphia and things, we were a single-parent family, my mother and I. And my mother finally married again to the gentleman, and he was a cement finisher -- what we called Gunite in those days -- and couldn't get a job. MR. WRIGHT: And he was involved in some sort of traditional intercity kinds of activities. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. Well, back East, you know, in New York and Detroit, they had what they called the numbers, the gangsters. And the underworld ran the numbers, and we played them back in that day and when we were back East. And then when we came to Michigan, they had what they called the policy, which was something like keno now. They had a big slip with about 12 numbers that were picked on it. And people would have a book and go around and collect that money and turn it over to the Mob, and you got so much money out of that book. The field man got a ten percent cut, and the people that wrote the book got a 25 percent cut off of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 5 it. MR. WRIGHT: So even before you came to Vegas, you had a little introduction to Vegas style gambling. DR. McMILLAN: Oh, yeah. We had quite a bit of it and, actually, the people that were prominent in those areas. In Detroit we lived close to where the Purple Gang originated from at that particular time. And in fact, my stepdad was in the numbers with a fellow that was managing the Fremont Hotel out here at that time. And my mother knew him, and she baby-sitted his kids. But he was president of the Fremont Hotel when we got here. Eddie Levinson was his last name. MR. WRIGHT: And he was part of the Purple Gang. DR. McMILLAN: He was part of the underworld. In fact, he was associated with them when they were in Detroit. And then when he came here, he moved up as running the Fremont Hotel. MR. WRIGHT: He got in a little hot water out here, too, didn't he? DR. McMILLAN: Yes, he did. MR. WRIGHT: You're a dentist. How did that happen? DR. McMILLAN: Well, I really didn't know what I wanted to be when I was going to grade school. And during the Depression, I was in grade school and high school, and I knew that a fellow had to have some way of making a living. And I TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 6 liked the number business myself at that particular time. MR. WRIGHT: You were personally involved in it as well? DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. I had a little book, too, and I thought that was pretty nice. But my mother had said, "You will not be involved in this particular mess. You are going to go to school and get an education." And looking around in the area at that particular time to see what blacks, Afro-Americans, what type of thing they were in and to make money, it seemed to be that you either had to be a dentist, a physician, an undertaker, a lawyer, or a school teacher. Well, I know that you had to go to college to do these things. So in high school, I took the college education course and went on to the University of Detroit. And I took the college course and postgraduate course because I knew that after finishing my athletic career in University of Detroit that I had to have something to make a living on. We couldn't play professional football or track at that time. They didn't pay any money. Professional football, they didn't let blacks play. So I mean, I had nothing left but to be one of those things. So I was going to be a physician. MR. WRIGHT: If I may interrupt just for a moment. You had an opportunity, did you not, to go to the University of Michigan? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 7 DR. McMILLAN: Yep. MR. WRIGHT: Tell us that story. DR. McMILLAN: I had a chance to go to the University of Michigan when they had some outstanding players there. Tommy Harmon was the outstanding back there at that particular time. Fred Everchefski (phonetic) was the quarterback. I knew him because he played in Detroit in our high school games. And so I wanted to go to Michigan, and I thought that was pretty nice. I went up to Michigan. I submitted my application and went to Michigan. And the coach says, "Oh, yeah, we'll give you a shot." Said, "Come here, and we'll take care of you." But Tommy Harmon and all the other freshmen football players were staying in the fraternity houses and good places, and they told me that I had to stay in a room in the gym or else live in the community with a black family. Well, thinking back, it wouldn't have been so bad, I guess, living in the community with a black family. But I just didn't think that was proper and right, so I left and went back to University of Detroit. MR. WRIGHT: So this was not something that actually surprised you having come from Mississippi, or did it? DR. McMILLAN: Well, it did because this was a state school. And everybody paid taxes for state schools, and they didn't allow blacks in the dormitories at that particular time TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 8 even though it was a state school. And, well, I guess maybe my ego got the best of me, and I said, "Well, I think I'm too good to be segregated against when these other fellas have good food and nice fraternity houses and stuff, and I've got to go to a little restaurant out there and not eat and stuff." So I said, "Well, I can stay at home and have a much better living and still play football." MR. WRIGHT: Anyway, Michigan didn't work out for very good reasons there. And you are now at the University of Detroit. DR. McMILLAN: And I was on a scholarship there. In fact, I think I was the first Afro-American recruited for the football team. We did have an Afro-American that was an All American basketball player out of New York. And I don't think at that particular time at the University of Detroit there were over five blacks on the whole campus. And I made the football team. And I found out during my years at the University of Detroit that they wouldn't play me against southern teams. They wouldn't take me to the southern cities to play because they would have a problem because of the segregation. MR. WRIGHT: With accommodations. DR. McMILLAN: With accommodations and stuff. We played in Indiana with Purdue, and we went to the hotel there. And they were standing in the hotel talking, and TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 9 when I looked around, everybody had a room but me. So I asked the coach what was wrong. He says, "Well, they don't want to let colored folks stay in this hotel." I said, "Well, if I can't stay here in the hotels, you might as well give me my ticket. I'll go on back to Detroit." He said, "Well, now, wait a minute. Don't lose your temper." And they finally negotiated for me to stay in that particular hotel in Indiana. The surprise of my life was when we went to Boston to play Boston College. I had been exposed to all of these other segregated places that we played football. To me, I said, "I'm going to the cradle of democracy, Boston. That's just great." I told my mother, "Boy, we're going to have a good time, Mom." And when I arrived at the train station in Boston, my picture was in the paper, the big so-and-so McMillan is playing here. I think the Statler Hotels at that time were the outstanding chains. And we were standing in the lobby, the priest and myself and the coach. We were all talking, and the same thing happened again. All of these white fellas had got their rooms and were gone, and here I am standing talking to the coach and the priest. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 10 And the coach came to me and said, "Well, you're going to have to stay with a nice colored family in Boston." I said, "Not again, Coach." I said, "I'm getting sick of this." I said, "Here we are in the cradle of democracy. You know, this is where the United States started from." And he says, "Mac, don't give me that stuff. Now, you know what the situation is." So the priest that traveled with us talked to him and they finally got me a room in the hotel. My room was next to the priest's room, and we had a door open between the two rooms. And the priest was in one room. I was in the other room. And I had to go to mass every day while the priest was there. And they did the same thing to me at the restaurant. When we went down to eat at the restaurant, they didn't want to let me in. But the whole football team rallied behind me, and we finally negotiated that. But that was the situation at that time in '37 and '38. MR. WRIGHT: Late '30s. And you're working part time, are you not, during this time? DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. During the college year, they had what they called a YN -- National something, a federal program that you worked in college. And I worked in the stadium and helped with painting and that type of thing. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 11 And then I was stupid enough to try to take 18 credits my freshman year and play football, which was stupid for an average student. MR. WRIGHT: Was it during your college years you worked at Ford as well? DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. In the summers when we were off, the college would get us a job at Ford Motor Company. In fact, you remember, during the war we had what they called the victory farms that people used to plant. And the Ford Motor Company had a big outstanding farm there, and we worked there for while. And we'd go back in the fall and play football. After I had some type of problem with the university, I had to work at the Ford Motor Company by myself, not with the school. And then I'd work in the afternoons, and then I'd go to school in the daytime. MR. WRIGHT: You told a story about -- maybe I'm getting ahead of the story a little bit -- but it's about the furnaces, the magnesium. Was that during the same period? DR. McMILLAN: That was during the period. After I had gotten in some hot water with the university, I was working there on my own at Ford Motor Company at that time, and it was during the war. And I was a member of the Union, and I was the committee man that managed all of the people in that particular section. Out here now, where they make magnesium, Ford Motor Company had the contract from the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 12 government in Michigan to make magnesium. And we had about five furnaces there where we would have retorts, the big tubes that they'd put the oxide of the magnesium in there and then they would heat it up and it would come out. MR. WRIGHT: Nasty kind of work. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. And at that time they had all Afro-Americans doing that job. And I kept their records because we had to know what they were going to be paid and the time and the seniority. And it just so happened that someone had the big idea of bringing some Caucasians from the glass plant, where we originally were, to work in this particular place. And when I looked around that day, all of the blacks were doing manual work around in the place, and I asked the foreman, I said, "What is this?" He says, "Well, we put these white fellas on the job because this is the high-paying job." I said, "Well, you can't do that. These black fellas, they have seniority on this particular job, and they should have it." He says, "Well, no. This is the way it's going to be." So I went to the white fellas that was there, and I said, "You're members of the Union, and you know that you're violating the Union rules. You can't come in my department TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 13 and take my jobs over these black fellas that are there." They said, "Well, they told us to come." I said, "Well, you know, you better get back because you're violating the contract." So they said, "Okay, Mac," said bye, and they were gone. So they walked off of the furnaces, which left nobody on these furnaces to control. My job was to make sure to read the pyrometer to make sure that the temperature was right. Well, I did that. But the other fellas, there were nobody to monitor them. And these things started to heat up and heat up. And the foreman says, "McMillan, you better put somebody on the furnace." I said, "Not me. You're the foreman. Now if you want somebody on these furnaces, you do it." Well, he didn't. These furnaces burnt down completely, burnt up, all the tubes in them burned out. And Ford Motor Company brought their people out and talked to the foreman, and he said that I was the cause of it. And we had a big conversation about it. And they took me up to the front office and quizzed it, asking me about why I did this. I was kind of a radical anyway doing the thing. And I talked about not going to the Army and told people I wouldn't stand up for the flag thing and stuff. And I told them I wouldn't go to the Army because they didn't let blacks TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 14 go to the Army and die as a pilot or infantry. You know, you had to drive a truck and carry garbage or, you know, that type of stuff. So at this interrogation I had with the Ford Motor Company in the office, they decided that I was a communist and that I had done this purposely to sabotage the war effort. And we had a hearing, three or four days on it. And finally, they decided that they couldn't prove their case, so they let me go. MR. WRIGHT: Just out of curiosity, which Union was it? DR. McMILLAN: It was the UAWCIO. MR. WRIGHT: Not a communist laden organization, as I recall. DR. McMILLAN: Not at all. So I told the people, "Hey, I'm Catholic and belong to the Union and never had this on my record." I said, "But you get sick and tired of being segregated or being discriminated against." And I said, "The reason that I made these statements that I can't die for my country --" and I said, you know, "You have all of these other organizations in the United States having meetings here and spies and stuff, ain't nobody does anything about that." So I said, "This is what I'm talking about. And I'll go to the Army, and I'll do my job if I can die like I want to." MR. WRIGHT: It must have been fairly difficult for TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 15 an Afro-American to get an education as a dentist in those years. DR. McMILLAN: Well, it was difficult to go to the regular dental schools. During that time, as to my knowledge, they only had two places where you could go to med or dental school. There may have been one place. The University of Michigan may at one time have had one black fellow in their medical school. I don't ever remember any dentists graduating from the University of Michigan before 1937. So it was in Meharry, Nashville, Tennessee, and Howard in Washington was the medical and dental schools there. In Hamtramck there was a black dentist that had finished from our dental and medical school. Very prominent man, well to do, and made a tremendous amount of money in his profession. Eighty-five percent of his patients were Caucasian, not that he didn't work on black patients. It just happened that way, that he happened to be a very good dentist and he attracted that type of clientele. And he happened to be very good friends with my mother and his whole family. And in fact, he happened to be involved in a wonderful game of numbers at the time and had a -- MR. WRIGHT: So he had a little side income there. DR. McMILLAN: So he had a little side income. There was a killing, a murder in the city of Detroit because of the underworld, and the police department and the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 16 City of Detroit pushed all of these people out of Detroit to Hamtramck. And they had to pay a fee if they were going to do that. And my mother used to be the bag woman for the Mob or the people in the numbers and take this money, and he happened to be the bag man for the mayor. So my mother would take this money to the dentist, and he would give it to the mayor over that period of time. MR. WRIGHT: I don't want to exactly skip over your Army service during the war years, but it was partly your dental training that got you around the world, did it not? DR. McMILLAN: Yes. At that time the Army had what they call an ASTP program where they would pay for your education. When you finish, you would be in the Army and do the time there. It so happened that Dr. Bell, the dentist in Hamtramck, had gotten me into the dental school, because I was an average student not a brilliant guy. And he was an alumni from the school, and he got me into the dental school. And at that time, you didn't have to be in the Army. I missed being in the Army by being in the dental school for a while. MR. WRIGHT: So you actually weren't in the Army, you were a dentist for the Army. DR. McMILLAN: I went to the dental school not being in the Army. So when I finished, I was commissioned a first lieutenant. And that was when I was in the Army. And that's TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 17 where we had all the problems in the Army. A black dentist couldn't work on a white patient. You couldn't go into the officers quarters because they had black officers clubs. I was assigned to Calcutta, India. And when I get there, they had a white Red Cross and a black Red Cross. The white Red Cross had a sign out, "No dogs, no Negroes." And it was just shocking to me because I met one of the outstanding women of the World Red Cross, and she would come out to our camp, and I'd give her the dickens about being segregated and how bad I didn't want to be with the Red Cross and got her to do a lot of extra things for the black troops in my battalion. The odd thing about that in the Army, in my battalion all the enlisted people were black. The top master sergeant was the highest officer in that battalion. All the rest of the officers were white -- dentists, the major, all that. And when we got there, there were four black officers to be assigned to this battalion, 49th Ordinance Battalion in Calcutta. I thought that we were going to be segregated in the barracks because we had to stay on my job where the dental clinic and medical clinic was. And I had a discussion about that, and finally, I got it moved back to the barracks. And we ran into southern officers that talked about blacks in the mess. They didn't care, no respect. And I had a confrontation with a southern white second lieutenant that TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 18 just talked about black people. You could hear him all over the mess talking about black people. And I told one of my friends, I said, "Well, we have to stop this." And he said, "Mac, don't get into any trouble now. You're an officer, he's an officer. You can't hit an officer. You can't fight, so what are you going to do?" I said, "Okay, I'll go with him." So I went to his table and picked him up. I said, "I get tired of you talking about black people. I'm an officer in the Army, and if you don't respect me, respect my uniform." He said some bad words to me. And so he says, "Well, you can't do this." He said, "You know you can't fight." So I just took my chest and bumped up against him and made him angry, and he hit me. And when he did that, we went to it. So that stopped us both from being court-martialed for hitting officers. MR. WRIGHT: And that was what, '44, '45, somewhere in there? DR. McMILLAN: '44, latter part of '44, first part of '45. MR. WRIGHT: So after the war is over, you're a practicing dentist again back in Michigan. DR. McMILLAN: The way I got out of the Army a little early is that the war was over in Europe at that time, and all of the people were concentrating on being shipped to China or, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 19 you know, go into the Pacific to fight against Japan. And they had cut our officers to go to Chongqing. It was the capital of China at that time. That's where the Flying Tigers flew out and what have you. And we were to leave and to go there. At this base, there were white officers, dental officers, and we were black dental officers. The white officers took the white boys, and we had to work on the black boys. So the next day our orders were canceled. And it just so happened that we had a friendly relationship with the white dentists. And so they were going to China, and our officers cut and changed that we would go back to the United States. So I said, "Well, this is funny." I said, "Well, that's nice. I like that, but I wonder why?" So I inquired around, and I found out that Madame Chiang Kai-shek had said that no black soldiers would come into China. So they cut our officers and shipped us back home. MR. WRIGHT: Now, that's a story that I had never heard about no black officers in China. DR. McMILLAN: No black soldiers in China. MR. WRIGHT: No black soldiers, period. DR. McMILLAN: No. And that was because of their request that they didn't want any black soldiers. MR. WRIGHT: I hadn't heard that one at all. That's TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 20 fascinating. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. MR. WRIGHT: So did you go directly back to Michigan then? DR. McMILLAN: Yeah, I came back to Michigan to practice dentistry, and I practiced there in my little town about four years. MR. WRIGHT: Were you also still involved sort of with numbers at this time? DR. McMILLAN: Well, at that particular time there was a nightclub across from me, and a friend of mine and I would go over there after practice and we talked. And I kind of got involved with him in the nightclub business and loaned him some money and stuff. I didn't even know that we had to pay income tax, I was so stupid. In fact, I had never made enough money to pay income tax at that particular time. So I got involved with him, and I used to go to the race track. And one night we were sitting in this club and in walks a jockey that I had seen at the race track. And he asked the waitresses, he said, "May I speak to the bosses?" And she pointed. We were sitting in the back of the club. And he walked back there, and he said, "I'm looking for the boss." So the fella said, "Yes, we're here. What can I do TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 21 for you?" He said, "You fellas interested in the races?" And I'd go to the race track every day. And I said, "Well, sure, I'm interested in the races." And he said, "Well, you know, we've got a little proposition for you that would make some money, if you'd like." I said, "Well, I'd like to hear it." So he told us that they had a stable that was coming to Chicago to our race track, and they were going to run these horses. They had about seven horses that they were going to run, and these horses would be all scheduled to win. And all you had to do was bet for them, and you could bet whatever you want for yourself, see. So I said, "Well, that sounds pretty good." Well, at that time I had an association with a young lady. Her father worked in the jock room, and he was the fella that took the saddles and the collars off and helped these guys back and forth. In the meantime, he was also booking their bets, the jock bets. They would give him some money, and he would go to the window and make a bet. And this night I was over talking to him, and he said, "Mac, you know, those jockeys don't even know who's going to win the race." I said, "What do you mean?" TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 22 He said, "I book bets every day. I'll bet if I book $300, I may have one bet." He said, "It's awful. We could make some money if we book them things." And I said, "What?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, okay." So I got involved with him, and he would bring the bets out. I'm on the race tracks. He'd bring the bets, and all of the ones that he thought were going to be good, he'd put through the machine. He'd bet those. MR. WRIGHT: So you're booking? DR. McMILLAN: So I'm booking on the race track, see. This happened for about 30 days. I'm standing at the fence one day. Somebody walked up there and touched me on the back and said, "Sir, come with me." I said, "What do you mean?" Well, he was the track policeman. He showed me his badge, says, "Come with me." I said, "I haven't done anything." He says, "Come with me." So they happened to take me into the secretary of the racing office there, and they had the Pinkerton people there. And they had been following us and monitoring us. And he said, "You're betting on the track and that's a violation. You could go to jail for that." And I guess I was in real TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 23 tough trouble. At that particular time in walks a judge that was in Hamtramck that was interested in the football players, and I knew well, and he knew my family well. And he walked in. He said, "McMillan, what are you doing here?" I said, "I don't know." So the guy told him, "Yeah, we caught him making bets on the track." He said, "What? Not you." I said, "Well, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong." So he took the fella in the next room, and they talked. And he stayed there about 25 minutes, came back. Fella said, "We're going to let you go, but we don't want to catch you on a race track again in your life. You're barred for life from the race tracks." And Judge Rooks said, "Mac, you're going to jeopardize your dental degree for this?" I said, "No, I'll stay off the race track," and left. MR. WRIGHT: Sort of fortuitous. You met Dr. Charles West. Did you have a practice with him when you were in Michigan? DR. McMILLAN: We practiced right where I was on Eight Mile Road. He came out of the Army. He was in Liberia in the Army. He was a physician in Liberia, and his brother TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 24 was a physician with him in the Army in Liberia. And he came back to Detroit, and we were in the same community practicing, and we happened to be friends. We would refer patients to each other. And he was interested in athletics, and we associated, become very good friends. It so happened that he had a divorce and then later on I had a divorce. And we had decided that, well, it was a little better to leave where we were and go somewhere else to practice. And we decided to go to Liberia in Africa because his brother was there, and he had served time there. And we thought that was pretty good. He said, "We can make a pretty good living in Africa if we go there to practice our professions." I said, "Well, that's fine." And the reason why we didn't go is that we used to go back to New York to Club Harlem, which was in Atlantic City. Atlantic City was prejudice. You couldn't go on the boardwalk at this particular time. And this happened to be a black nightclub, and that's where I met Bob Bailey and his wife, because he was associated with the entertainment business at that time. Dr. West happened to meet a young chorus girl that was working there, and they got married, and they were back living in Detroit practicing. And she was from Los Angeles, and he would drive back and forth from Detroit to Los Angeles. And one year he happened to drive through TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 25 Las Vegas. Because of the weather, he was forced to go through Las Vegas. He saw the town. They were building. He saw the nightclubs and entertainment. And she was in the entertainment business. He came back and said, "Mac, I'm going to go to Las Vegas." I said, "Las Vegas, where is Las Vegas?" He says, "In Nevada." I said, "I didn't know anything about it." So he decided to go, and he moved to Las Vegas to start his practice, and I stayed in Detroit. We didn't go to Liberia because his wife said she would not go. So that just knocked out the trip of going to Africa to practice. MR. WRIGHT: And one cold and snowy winter you got a postcard. DR. McMILLAN: I got a postcard. Phoenix used to send out this advertisement to get people there. Because where we were in Fort Huachuca, Phoenix was not a big town. And in fact, I had a chance to buy land in Phoenix for $500 for five acres at that particular time. And so they wanted me to come there. So they would advertise by sending these cards all over the United States, big old nice card. It had an orange on it and the sun was shining. And they would say, "Fun in the sun. Temperature, 75 degrees." This morning I got in my mail, snow. My automobile had snow up to the hubs, and I had to shovel the snow, and it TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 26 was cold. People come into my waiting room and there was snow and mud in there. It had the window heaters and air-conditioners at that time, and they were all busted and it was cold. And I picked up this card and read it, and I said, "There's got to be a better place than this." And I said, "Dr. West is in Las Vegas, I'll call him." And I picked up the phone and called him. I said, "Doctor, how are you doing?" He said, "Oh, great." I said, "How's the temperature out there?" He said, "Oh, it's 75 degrees. The sun is shining." I said, "What?" He says, "Yes." I said, "I'll be out there this weekend." What do they call that three-tail airplane? MR. WRIGHT: Oh, the constellation. TWA. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah, constellations were flying then, and I jumped on the thing and went out there to meet him at Las Vegas. MR. WRIGHT: Now, you hadn't been to Vegas before but you had been through Nevada; it didn't leave a favorable impression as you came through. DR. McMILLAN: No. When I was playing football at University of Detroit, we were traveling on the train. We TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 27 were going to Sacramento. The train went through Reno. They were talking about Reno, this is where they gamble. And at that time, also, throughout the United States, you used to see signs on the highways about Reno, come to Reno to gamble and that type of thing. MR. WRIGHT: Harold's Club or bust. DR. McMILLAN: Harold's Club, that's right. So we get to Reno. The train stopped and whatever they had to do, let passengers off or what have you, and the football team got off. Right in the middle of town there was a big old archway that said, "The biggest little city in the world." And they had a wooden sidewalk along this thing. And we would run up and down it. The coach had us run up and down this thing to exercise. We had been on the train. And after we spent the time doing this, the fellas went into the joints. So I headed into the joint. When I got to the door, the guard stopped me and said, "Where are you going?" I said, "I'm going in the place." He says, "No, you don't. We don't allow niggers in here." And I said, "What?" And I had to get back out on the sidewalk, and I went back on the train. So one of the coaches says, "Mac, where are you?" I said, "Well, they don't allow black folks in TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 28 there." And I said, "I'm back here." And that was my introduction to Nevada. And I didn't know anything about Las Vegas, and I didn't know much about Reno until that particular time. MR. WRIGHT: But when you got to Las Vegas, you had a fairly rude introduction to Las Vegas from the cab driver as you were giving directions. DR. McMILLAN: And you know, you never really understand why people can act like this. Here's a nice little old town. I had landed there, and the airport was on the Strip at that time. It was a western type airport, and people going and coming, you know. The weather was nice. And you say, "Oh, boy, this is really nice." I got a cab, got into it. The fella was nice and congenial and, you know, "How are you, sir," and blah, blah, blah. And I said, "I'm going to Wyatt Avenue." I said, "Do you know where that is?" He says, "No, I don't know where Wyatt Avenue is, but I'll find out." He flipped on his radio in the car, called the people there. And he says, "I have a passenger. The gentleman wants to go to Wyatt Avenue. Can you tell me how to get there?" She says, "Yeah, I can, but be careful there. That's where all the niggers live, so I wouldn't go over there if I TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 29 were you." This man turned back around and looked at me all red and apologized. He said, "Sir, I'm sorry. I'm new here, too, and I just didn't expect this type of thing." So I said, "Well, I can understand that." And it was just a shock to find out that this type of stuff was happening. MR. WRIGHT: Now, tell us about 524 Wyatt Avenue. DR. McMILLAN: 524 Wyatt Avenue, that's where I lived there. Dr. West lived there. He had two houses on one side of the street. And I had bought two houses on the other side of the street after a while. When I got ready to go where Wyatt was, we went under the viaduct, and we got to the corner of D Street; it wasn't paved at that time. And people were hanging all out on the street and no lights. And I said, "My God, is this the place that I'm going to practice and go?" And when we finally got to Wyatt Avenue, it was paved. They had built the new houses there and that's where the black community was. And Dr. West had these two houses, and he used to rent those houses to the entertainers because all the entertainers that worked on the Strip had to live in the West Las Vegas area. MR. WRIGHT: And this is about what, 1953 somewhere? DR. McMILLAN: This was about 1953. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 30 MR. WRIGHT: Can you describe just a little bit more where what used to be, what used to be called West Las Vegas or Westside Las Vegas? I think a lot of listeners will not know what area you're referring to. DR. McMILLAN: Well, you know where the corner of Main Street and Bonanza Road is right there and the viaduct is right under there? Well, right under the viaduct -- we used to call that the Berlin Wall. MR. WRIGHT: And sometimes the Concrete Curtain. DR. McMILLAN: Concrete Curtain, Berlin Wall. And we'd go up under there and then the first street there was D Street. And Bonanza Road went all the way out to Highland Avenue at that time. MR. WRIGHT: Which is now Martin Luther King. DR. McMILLAN: Which is Martin Luther King. What's that last street back there? Well, Rancho went all the back and Washington went all the way back. But Rancho road was probably the borderline of that whole development. And at Martin Luther King was where it stopped for the black people. North, it went to Carey Avenue, right back in there. And that's where all of the black people were gathered. I understand before that some black business people were down on Fourth Street somewhere, and that they had some businesses there. But finally, the sheriff moved those people back out into the West Las Vegas area. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 31 MR. WRIGHT: Yeah. During the war, licenses were pulled for serving mixed clientele -- DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. MR. WRIGHT: -- that sort of thing, right. You described generally what the Westside was like. Could you go into just a little more detail? DR. McMILLAN: Okay. The Westside at that particular time, except for the Wyatt Avenue subdivision, which was new houses, the Berkley Square subdivision it was called, this new housing. The others were old houses. The roads were dirt roads, except one or two of them. We had some clubs over there, though. We had some gaming clubs over there. The Orientals had a club called the Louisiana Club. The Town Tavern was the black club over there. There was another club, the El Morocco was there. There was another Oriental club back a little farther that was over there. We had a black grocery store over there, a couple of them. We had many black churches that were there. The Catholic church was there at that particular time. Mexicans lived there also. They had a couple of stores in the area. And some whites had a store on the corner of D and Bonanza Road. MR. WRIGHT: That was Chet Gilbert. DR. McMILLAN: Gilbert's store. And Gilbert had the bar across the street from there. And Gilbert was involved TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 32 with politics over that period of time. MR. WRIGHT: I've heard from a number of people that the living conditions on the Westside were not because of a lack of money because there were a lot of jobs during the war, and people did have a lot of money to spend. DR. McMILLAN: Most of the people were working, and most of the people had big bucks in their pocket. I would walk through the Westside, and I would see fellas sitting on the street gambling for hundred dollar bills and that. This was amazing to me. I said, "Hey, there's nothing but money in this town." And that's one of the attractions that I had for coming to Las Vegas -- 24-hour town, good entertainment, plenty of chorus girls, plenty of money, and good weather. MR. WRIGHT: So the next logical step there, I guess, is the political situation. And Las Vegas was often in those years -- correct me if I'm wrong -- called the Mississippi of the West. DR. McMILLAN: The Mississippi of the West. I was surprised to hear that name. MR. WRIGHT: But you did hear that very soon after arriving here. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah, they used that name quite a bit. Politically, there was not an organized -- well, maybe there was. When I came, before that, Woodrow Wilson, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 33 Dave Hoggard, Lubertha Johnson, those people were there, and they were working in the West Las Vegas area to try to get things going, to get votes. And Woodrow Wilson was a prominent black and Dave Hoggard a prominent black, Lubertha Johnson. They were all doing their job. But a white fella had all of the votes in his pocket from the conventions that they would have, the Democratic convention. A number of the people in the precinct, he had all of these votes in his pocket, and he would go to the county conventions and he would vote all of them. So we had started to say that we have to do something about that. We have to be represented in the county Democratic machine to make sure that we had the representation. And we got together and formed our Nevada Voters League, NAACP was working. And we finally had a confrontation with this fella, and I'm trying to recall his name. He finally moved up to Caliente, somewhere up there. And we finally got those votes, and we started to voting our power in the Democratic party. I can't think of his name. We had an argument on the county floor because he had all these votes in his pocket and got ready to vote them, and we went and jumped on him. We had a scrabble at the county convention to annihilate his votes. MR. WRIGHT: I wish I could come up a suggestion or two, but it escapes me who that might have been. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 34 In any event, you became involved very early with the NAACP. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. It just so happened Dave Hoggard, my friend, wanted me to come down to the NAACP meeting. And I said, "Okay, I was getting something with you guys. I'd like to." I was a NAACP member in Detroit and seen it work and operate. And I went to the meeting with him and it was a pretty good meeting that particular time. I think the following two weeks, the next meeting, fooled around and they voted me president of the chapter. And I said, "Well, okay. I'll take this. I don't know how much I can do, but I'll take it. I like it." And we started our meetings there and I started going. MR. WRIGHT: I suppose I should have you enlarge just a little bit about the situation on the east side of the tracks and what the segregation amounted to in practical terms in Las Vegas in those years. DR. McMILLAN: On the east side? MR. WRIGHT: Well, I'm talking about the hotels and the resorts and so forth. DR. McMILLAN: Of all of the hotels, you couldn't go into any of the hotels. They only had blacks doing maids and janitors, what have you. And actually, our entertainment was in West Las Vegas. I mean, we would go to these clubs, the Louisiana Club, Town Tavern or what have you. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 35 Dr. West had a chance to go into some of these hotels. Some of the entertainers that he knew, he would go into the back door and meet them. And they were friends, what have you, and then they would come over in the West Las Vegas area. The restaurants -- of course, if someone disagrees with me on this -- I remember downtown that black people going into the department stores and buying clothes that they couldn't try on anything. If they tried on anything, they had to buy it. They did not let you go into any restaurants down there. Dave Hoggard told me that there was one little place down there that did let people stand up and buy a sandwich. I don't ever remember seeing it on Main Street. MR. WRIGHT: Just one place where you could stand up and buy one sandwich. DR. McMILLAN: Yes. Also, I've gotten into some discussions about people that had -- there was a place called Foxie's on Sahara. MR. WRIGHT: I've heard about Foxie's. DR. McMILLAN: And they said that he was a big liberal. Maybe he was a liberal guy. My memory of it is that he had about three seats or four seats in this place that he would let Afro-Americans come in, in the back. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah. Foxie's was the advertised place TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 36 in those years, signs miles out saying, "Eat at Roxie's." DR. McMILLAN: That's right, right next to the Sahara Club. And I went there several times to eat. And I told Dave, "I'm not going back there, Dave, if I have to sit back in this corner at this seat to spend my money and eat." But someone told me that Foxie's was a liberal man, and we could go in and eat in his place anywhere. But I never did see it or ever remember that. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah. And for the sake of the listeners, Foxie's was right across from where the Sahara is, right there at Sahara and the Strip. DR. McMILLAN: That's right. And that's where the entertainers would come in from the Sahara and eat and what have you. MR. WRIGHT: I've talked to a couple of musicians that said that there were motels on the Strip where blacks could stay, in particular one near the Flamingo. DR. McMILLAN: I don't remember any of the hotels letting black entertainers stay. Most of the prominent entertainers -- MR. WRIGHT: No, these would have been motels. DR. McMILLAN: And motels, I don't even remember those. Because they were like Lena Horne and Joe Williams and Billy Eckstine, and all these people stayed in West Las Vegas. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 37 MR. WRIGHT: This is when Las Vegas was really the entertainment capital of the world. DR. McMILLAN: That's right. MR. WRIGHT: And so many of those were black entertainers. DR. McMILLAN: I never remembered any motels where they stayed at all on the Strip. And all of my experience with the Strip was segregated, severely segregated. MR. WRIGHT: And movie theaters as well. DR. McMILLAN: Movie theaters. Well, I've gotten in an argument about that with some Jewish people. Katz had three or four movie theaters here in Las Vegas. And there were two others, Fremont and somebody else. My children worked in those theaters as ushers, and they had to seat black people in the balcony. My children tried to go to some of those theaters, and they were pushed up in the balcony. Now, the discussion that I had with Mrs. Katz, her husband had died, and they named a school after him out there. And they named a school after me out there, and the schools are right side by side. And it just so happened, casually I just said, "This is really odd that these two schools are together." And I said, "The two of us have come together and really appreciated Las Vegas, that both of our schools are together and there's no segregation and we're doing this." TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 38 And Mrs. Katz got awfully angry at me, saying that I was wrong. But I can tell her for sure that I was segregated. My kids were segregated in those theaters. And then I think when the times changed, Mr. Katz let everybody come in, and maybe he was also a fighter for the elimination of segregation. I'm not trying to down him or anything, but I'm just saying what I remember as far as the theaters are concerned. MR. WRIGHT: And I had heard similarly conflicting reports about not only after World War II but before World War II. DR. McMILLAN: Um-hm. MR. WRIGHT: With your activities in the NAACP, you started fairly small. Some of your activities mostly focused on West Las Vegas. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. Number one, first, Gilbert's grocery store, we jumped on Gilbert about working, hiring black people and doing some things in the community and making contributions. And we had arguments going back and forth. MR. WRIGHT: And did he? DR. McMILLAN: He tried to help us do that. Of course, he had the black beer garden across the street, and he was making money on that. We had to decide to try to make some movement with the NAACP over the years. Cannon used to be in the city. He TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 39 used to be a city attorney. And Woodrow Wilson had conversations with the senator at that time. What was his name? MR. WRIGHT: Bible? DR. McMILLAN: No, the big one. MR. WRIGHT: Oh, McCarran. DR. McMILLAN: McCarran. He had conversations and disputes with him. So when I became president, I said, "Well, let's start something. Let's get some movement going." And I thought the easiest thing was that we had a couple of milk companies. And I'd see this white milk guy delivering milk in the black community. And I said, "This just doesn't seem right. Here's a little old black community, and we can't have a black man delivering milk to our people?" There was the Highland Dairy and the Anderson Dairy were the two people there. So I just said, "Well, fellas, we're going to start our movement. We're going to have all of our people stop buying milk from one of these milk companies." And we went in to talk to both of them and both of them said they would not hire a black to do this, see. So we decided, "Well, let's pick one." So we picked Highland Dairy. And all of the people turned back milk that they had, and they stopped buying milk from Highland Dairy. And so we said, "We are going to do this until you hire a black person to deliver this milk." They wouldn't do it. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 40 Highland Dairy wouldn't do it. So they went out of business. And Anderson Dairy decided to hire somebody. And I guess maybe the gentleman that took the job, maybe he wouldn't want me to call his name, but we had a black gentleman that worked on the truck and started delivering milk for us over there. MR. WRIGHT: Before I get into that, there was also something about the Chinese-owned or operated clubs. DR. McMILLAN: They owned the Louisiana Club and the other club in the northern part. I can't think of it. Rio, I think it was called. MR. WRIGHT: The El Rio. DR. McMILLAN: The El Rio, it was called. And they had black dealers, what have you, working, but black dealers were working for a reduced rate. And Louie -- what was his name? Louisiana Club, Louie somebody. I forget his name. MR. WRIGHT: Z'Louie? DR. McMILLAN: Z'Louie, that's right. He was big time in politics. I mean, all of the big time politicians would come over to his club, and he would feed them and he had cart blanche to everything in this city. And he wasn't paying these fellas a decent wage. And so they came to us and said, "Can you do anything for us to help us get better pay?" I said, "Well, let's boycott these people." TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 41 So they said, "Well, okay." So we said, "Well, let's pick the club now. We're going to have one club that we won't boycott and all of the rest we will." So the Town Tavern was the black-owned club. Everybody would go to the Town Tavern, and we boycotted Z'Louie's club and the El Rio out there. And finally, he raised their pay to $21 a night or whatever that was. I think it was $20, $21 a night, same as they were getting on the Strip. And that was successful, which was nice. I mean, it was good to have these type of successes. And the Caucasian dealers, after seeing this particular thing, came to me and said, "We would like for you to head our Union for us to get better pay, health insurance, and proper vacations and things." Said, "We want you to be the head of the Union to do that." I said, "That sounds pretty nice. I don't mind being that if you guys are really going to form a Union together and work." They said, "Yeah, we will do that." I said, "Okay. I'll tell you one thing. The only way that we're going to be able to get anything done, you know that the Mob owns these places and they're pretty tough." I said, "The only way we're going to be able to get anything done is to have to stand tight for one another. And when I call a strike, all of you are going to have to walk out and TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 42 leave them sitting there." So they were supposed to pay me $5 per something. I don't know whether it was $5 per man or something. It was a tremendous salary for a year, you know. They said, "Oh, no, we're not going to do this." I said, "Oh, no. You don't need me." MR. WRIGHT: You don't need a Union at this point. DR. McMILLAN: Don't need a Union at all. MR. WRIGHT: I've heard a little bit about this, but I don't really understand. What about women dealers? I think the city had banned women dealers, but there were still women dealers -- DR. McMILLAN: Well, you see, we didn't really know what was happening in the white clubs. But I know that they didn't have women dealers. They didn't want them. Up in Reno, they had women dealers, but I didn't remember a whole bunch of women dealers. Maybe downtown they may have had a few, but I don't remember, because we didn't have any Afro-American women working dealing in the clubs at that time. MR. WRIGHT: But there were some women dealers in the clubs on the Westside, were there not? DR. McMILLAN: Oh, yeah. Yeah. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah. I think there was an ordinance against it or something like that, but it wasn't enforced -- DR. McMILLAN: It wasn't enforced on the Westside. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 43 MR. WRIGHT: -- for a while on the Westside. What about the police force, law enforcement? DR. McMILLAN: Law enforcement, I think we had what, about -- was it Andrew Jackson? We had one, two, three, four. I think we had four or five blacks that policed the black area. MR. WRIGHT: Only the black area? DR. McMILLAN: Only the black area. Couldn't arrest a white person. MR. WRIGHT: Couldn't arrest a white person. DR. McMILLAN: No. They had to call a white officer if they were going to arrest a white person. Didn't patrol the white community at all. MR. WRIGHT: We had a motorcycle person. I remember a black motorcycle person that worked in the black area only. And Wilbur Jackson, who is retired now, was one of the important people in bringing a suit against the police department and the City of Las Vegas. Finally got their proper promotions and properly hiring blacks over a period of time. MR. WRIGHT: I know, Herman Moody was the first one to pass the exam. DR. McMILLAN: Moody was the first time, and he was lieutenant, I guess pushed up to it, was an outstanding person they say. I knew him fairly well. I didn't have much TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 44 association with him, but I understand he was well respected from the police department and worked on it for years. MR. WRIGHT: Let's get toward the end of the decade and 1960 in particular, a very crucial turning point for Las Vegas, and you were very central to it. And I think it's a story that can be told in some detail if you would. DR. McMILLAN: That was the main thrust of our action really, the NAACP, in starting. During that time the civil rights movement was moving all over the country. In North Carolina, the college students had the sit-in at the lunch counters. Martin Luther King was on the move. Alabama was on the move, marching throughout. And nothing was happening in Las Vegas. And I had said to the executive board, I said, "You know, we've been working politically, and we've been voting for politicians, and I think that probably for the pride of our community and the fact that we can get some jobs, we should do something to try to eliminate this discrimination." It was an offhanded discussion, and so they shrugged their shoulders and said, "Yeah, okay." At that particular time, I received from the national office a letter saying that all of the branches of the NAACP should do everything they possibly can to eliminate all of the vestiges of segregation in your chapters, and we will stand behind you to help you do this particular thing. So me being TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 45 the president, I said, "Well, okay. We'll start that." I'm naive to what can happen. So I addressed a letter to the mayor, Oran Gragson, saying that we had been ordered by our national office to eliminate discrimination in our chapters and that Las Vegas was a bigoted, segregated town and we wanted to do this, and that we were going to follow the chapter, and that we would give them 30 days to do something to eliminate discrimination in the city or else we would have a march or just demonstrations in the city. I addressed that letter to Oran Gragson, and the executive board backed me up on it. I didn't hear anything about the letter for three or four days probably. And the reason that I heard about this is that Allan Jarlson, who worked for the Sun newspaper, and his place where he would write stories was to city hall. And it happened that this day he was in the city hall. We had voted against Oran Gragson during the election, if you wanted to know. MR. WRIGHT: I think he said he got 16 votes in the first election. DR. McMILLAN: Well, I think there were about 300 votes out of the 3,000 that he got. The mayor was called out of his office for something. Allan told me this. And he said he saw our letter on the mayor's desk, and he read it, and he put it back. And when the mayor came back in, he said, "Well, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 46 what are you going to do about this discrimination, the demonstration that's going to happen here within 30 days if you don't eliminate discrimination?" And the mayor said, "How did you know about it?" And he said, "Well, it's on your desk right there." So at that time the newspapers, televisions, radios worked in combination with the city and the big people in the city. No bad news would get out about Las Vegas at all over the television or radios or what have you. Sun newspaper, wrote his article all of the time there, but I mean, somebody would have to look to come and pick it up if they were interested in doing something. So we had negotiations continually going on. And Allan Jarlson said, in order to get some action from this, he said, "I want to see if we can --" They had a radio station in the Fremont Hotel, up there in the top. I don't know who it was. And he took this information to this man up there. Now, this fella was elated to get this particular information, and he read it over the radio. The next day all over the United States: "Demonstration in Las Vegas is planned in 30 days." And it was just all over the papers, the telephones and all this stuff was coming back to the city. And this really upset the politicians and the people, the club owners that they had to start thinking about doing something. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 47 And we started to have meetings. We had a meeting with Oran Gragson and Reed Whipple in my office. Redlining was the thing, and it's lasted over the years. And they said that they would give us all the amount of money that we would need to build and to develop the West Las Vegas area and to put stores in and loan our people money and what have you. And I didn't really know what to take of it. I really, being the president and to make this type of movement and fail on it would have been just disastrous to me. If I would have done this to stop the things that were going on and they refused to do this, I guess they would have run me out of town. So I said, "No, we're going to proceed on with this. And I think that you gentlemen should use your time to help us eliminate the segregation that's there." They didn't take any action on it. They went back to discuss it. I never did hear from them anymore. But, as the time moved on, the community started to support it. The churches started to support our movement. We had meetings in the churches to plan what we were going to do. We had the press to come in to get all of the press that we could get. MR. WRIGHT: Did Hank Greenspun become fairly responsive? DR. McMILLAN: Hank Greenspun. I talked to Hank Greenspun, and he said that he would meet with the people and TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 48 do what he could. And he wrote nice articles in the paper for us. We didn't have any real formal meetings with Hank Greenspun. I didn't. I heard on the phone. We were good friends, and we talked on the phone. And he said that he would talk to these people to see what could be done. Well, I never had any movement from them. So finally, I guess about a week before, I'm getting nervous about what is going to happen, you know. And I began to get rumblings or things from the community saying that, "Well, these people might come in and burn our businesses down and we'll lose our jobs of the people that are working." The Ku Klux Klan called me on the phone at home saying that they were going to burn us out. My children answering the phone would go into hysterical crying because people would call them dogs, and gorillas, and niggers and that type of thing. Mr. Bob Bailey and Wilbur Jackson, them people would stay out around my house at night because they were threatening to burn it down, or they were threatening they were going to dump me in Lake Mead. And I was really at a point of not really knowing what was going to happen, and I had the support, I could see, of people in the community. And about three days before the march was supposed to take place, we were planning to have cars on the Strip and try to get cars on the airstrip so that planes couldn't land. And TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 49 we had all of the national publicity we needed because we sent out communications to convention people saying not to come to Las Vegas because it was a segregated town. And all of that was working for us. But it so happened, we had three of the ministers that I know real well that came to my office the day before the march was supposed to take place. And they said, "Well, I don't think we can support you, McMillan, because we're going to be in more trouble than we have now as far as all these things happening, and we just can't support you in this march." Well it just so happened that I had found out by then that this could be settled without a march because a fella named Oscar Crozier had come to me and told me that the Mob and owners of these hotels had said that if I didn't stop doing what I was doing that they were really going to dump me in Lake Mead, and I could count on that. And he said, "Mac, if I were you, I would call this thing off and let them know that you are not going to do it." I said, "Oscar, that's stupid. What we're trying to do is to make this a cosmopolitan town, do nothing but make more business for the hotels, have more conventions and what have you." And I said, "Why don't you go back and tell these people that this is what I'm all about. I don't know anything about gambling. I'm not trying to ruin their businesses, and TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 50 I think it will be better for all of us." He happened to do that for me. He went back and met with them and discussed what I had said and what my intentions were, and they agreed with him to let me know that it would be all right, that they would stop the segregation on the Strip and in these hotels. Well, I knew that when these ministers came to me. And when they told me this, I didn't tell them anything about it. And when they told me this and got ready to walk out of the office, I said, "Well, wait a minute gentlemen. I really want to tell you something." I said, "The march is off because these people have agreed that they will integrate the hotels." And they were happy and clapping and stuff and carrying on. MR. WRIGHT: And I think not too long after that, you had a chance meeting with Moe Dalitz, was it, at the Desert Inn? DR. McMILLAN: I wasn't married at the time. And it just so happened I had a young lady friend that was part Hispanic, and we were very good friends. And I asked her, "Would you help me do something?" We were having people from the NAACP go to the different hotels to see if they were let into the hotels, to see if they could eat in the restaurants, to see if they could gamble. And so far all of these things were going just fine. I had to call the Desert Inn that next TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 51 day for them to let me know that the Mob had said this was okay, see. So I said, "Well, I'd better go ahead and test the Desert Inn." I said, "This is the toughest part." I asked this young lady, I said, "Would you go with me as my date to the Desert Inn so I can see whether this thing is happening or not?" She says, "Sure." I said, "Now, you know, you might get into trouble." She says, "That's all right, I'll go with you." So we went into the Desert Inn in the lounge there. They had a lounge where you get music and stuff. And we sat down in there, and we had ordered a drink. And the guys brought us a drink, looked at us. And then all of a sudden, this gentleman came around from behind us and looked over there. And I looked over at him. I knew who he was. And he said, "McMillan, how are you?" I said, "I'm fine." I said, "I just wanted to see if things are working all right." He said, "Yeah, you see that they're working all right." He said, "Boy, you're really trying my patience aren't you?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "You know, you come in this hotel with a white woman and a black man to come into the hotel to sit down TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 52 to test us? Don't you know that you're pushing it to the end?" I said, "No." I said, "This is what we're talking about, to make sure that we're going to integrate the hotels." He said, "Okay, Mac." He said, "I know you are." And from then on, Moe Dalitz and I were real good friends, had a really good relationship. MR. WRIGHT: It's kind of amazing in a way that things fell into line quite so quickly. DR. McMILLAN: Just beautiful. MR. WRIGHT: With a few exceptions, I guess. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. Well, we had one exception. In downtown, the Horseshoe never did quit. They had a black guard down there that was six foot three. He was Benny Binion's guard for years in Texas. And we just didn't challenge that particular one. But the California Club that was located on the corner of Main Street and Fremont, they were still segregating. So Dave Hoggard and I, I said, "Dave, let's do something to see what this guy's doing." So he said, "Okay." And we happened to get a veteran that was a paraplegic veteran in a wheelchair, black guy. So we told him what we wanted to do. He said, "Okay, yeah." He said, "I'll TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 53 go with you. I want to see what happens." So we all three of us decided to go into the California Club. So we got out of the van, took the wheelchair, went into the club and moved around to a place where we could order a drink. Nobody served us. So finally, the manager came by and said, "We don't serve niggers in here." And he said, "Leave." We said, "What do you mean? Don't you know that you're supposed to stop segregating this town?" He said, "I'll not stop segregating," and called the security guards and took this veteran in his wheelchair and threw him out of the thing with us. But the press got a hold of it. Hank Greenspun wrote all this stuff and the television stuff. And so he finally did integrate. He finally sold the club, sold it to some Mob people from San Francisco that came down. MR. WRIGHT: The time period here, when was it that you became the president of NAACP, if you can remember? DR. McMILLAN: I came here permanently in '55, '56. It would be about '56, '57, something like that. MR. WRIGHT: This series of events happens very, very quickly then. We're talking about March of 1960. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. Because '61, we had a little political action thing from there between '57 and '62. We had voter things, and I met with Al Bramlet during that time to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 54 discuss whether they would have waiters and maitre d's in the clubs. And we met with all that milk people and all that type of strikes and all of that type of thing was before '62. MR. WRIGHT: Um-hm. DR. McMILLAN: '61 or '62. We had the march in '61 or '62? MR. WRIGHT: It was scheduled in March of '60. DR. McMILLAN: '60 okay. MR. WRIGHT: Right. And in some contexts the location of that final meeting where -- DR. McMILLAN: What was that, in '61, that final meeting in the hotel? MR. WRIGHT: March of '60 at the Moulin Rouge. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. MR. WRIGHT: -- has given some significance to the Moulin Rouge Hotel. And that opened while you were here. And it's one establishment that I can say has gathered a lot of attention locally, nationally, even internationally, people are interested in that. Can you tell us a little bit about the Moulin Rouge? DR. McMILLAN: Well, when I first came in '52, '53 -- I came in '55 permanently when it was open. And I came to visit Dr. West when it was open. And I was in the Army at that time, and I can't really remember the numbers. It had to be maybe '55 or just about, early '55, because it was opened TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 55 in '55 and stayed open six months. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah. In '55, Dr. West was a physician for Archie Moore, who was training at the Moulin Rouge. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah, okay. So that's when I came out and met Dr. West. He was working here. And that's when I decided really to move here, number one, because I visited him and in his waiting room he had people galore with money. And there was a time that I went with him to the Moulin Rouge on a call. And a fella was drink in the room or had been drunk and asked Dr. West to give him a B-12 shot so he could kind of come together. And he did. And I was in the room with him. So he said, "Doc, go over there on the dresser and get your fee." And he said, "Okay." And I looked, and I kind of thought. I said, "How the heck is he going to get his fee on there?" So he walked over to the dresser, and he had these little chip things. I didn't know what they were really at that time. So he just reached in and took a handful of them. He had four or five in his hand, and we left. And we got outside, down in the main lounge of the hotel, and I said, "Doctor, what did you get for that call?" I says, "You got all of these things. How are you going to get the money for that?" He says, "These are chips." TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 56 I said, "What are they? Are they worth money?" He said, "Yeah. Each of them are worth a hundred dollars." I said, "A hundred dollars?" I said, "You made $500 for this call?" I said, "I'll be out here." I went right to the board and got my papers to fill out to take the examination so I could come to Las Vegas. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah. In those days people went to the grocery store with casino chips. DR. McMILLAN: It was a beautiful hotel, an integrated hotel, run very well. Good entertainment from all over the United States. On the radio at night, the bands that were playing in the Moulin Rouge, you could hear them. I'd hear the bands driving from Indianapolis out here to Las Vegas. All of the outstanding important people, Ed Sullivan, Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny, all of these people would come. And it just so happened that I got married in the Moulin Rouge. The fella that sang this song, he sang the wedding march and that kind of stuff. But Barbara Hutton would be there and all types of people. And this thing was just an outstanding hotel. And it was really a landmark for Las Vegas. And if it would have stayed, it would have really done much more for Las Vegas than it was. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 57 The only reason that we had the meeting in the Moulin Rouge after the strike, to settle it, that was the only place that we had that I thought would hold that amount of people. And we had to go in and take the chairs down. And that picture that we have there with all of these people sitting around it, we had to put these chairs in and put the chairs around it so that they could take pictures of the Moulin Rouge at our meeting at that particular time. That was the only significance of us meeting at the Moulin Rouge in that room at that time. But since then, people have said, "Well, it's a landmark. It means that the city was not segregated anymore, and that we were accepted," and all that type of thing. MR. WRIGHT: Before they opened it, the Moulin Rouge advertised as the first interracial resort in the country. To your knowledge, was that correct? Seems like a fairly extravagant claim, but I can't specifically think of any others. DR. McMILLAN: Well, in Detroit years before then, I remember we have our regular clubs and nightclubs and stuff, and I remember resistance of us going to some of the big places down in Detroit that was segregated. The Statler Hotel was segregated, and all of these big hotels in Detroit were segregated at that time. And it may have been the first integrated hotel in the United States. I couldn't comment on TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 58 that, but I know that in other places that I visited that there was segregation in the nightclubs and what have you. Well, even in New York, the gangsters had the Cotton Club actually. MR. WRIGHT: Which was segregated. DR. McMILLAN: It was segregated in a way. You know, they had the entertainers there and all them big people there, and it was in the big city. So I don't know. MR. WRIGHT: And there at the Moulin Rouge, too, there were jobs available for blacks that simply weren't available in any other gambling establishment. DR. McMILLAN: That's right. We had dealers there, and we had pit bosses, and all the jobs, and cocktail waitresses that weren't available anywhere. But you know, this has been 40 years or so. And we called this the Mississippi of the West at that particular time. Has anyone or has the black community or the Caucasian community looked back at the South to see what's happening? Mississippi is the third largest gaming state in the Union. In Jackson, Mississippi, they have a black mayor, they have three black councilmen, the superintendent of schools is black, the police department is half black. And the gaming establishments throughout Mississippi, right now they're working more black people than we have working here, and cocktail waitresses, as pit bosses and that TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 59 type of stuff, not counting the people that are doing the maids and what have you. And this exists among some segregation, too, in Mississippi because the golf clubs are really careful about how many people play in there. But this thing that is happening in Mississippi, where we used to call this the Mississippi of the West, they are really outdoing what we're doing here in Las Vegas now. MR. WRIGHT: And in 1960, the catch phrase I guess was "Never in Mississippi." DR. McMILLAN: That's right. MR. WRIGHT: So it is an amazing twist. DR. McMILLAN: So it's an amazing turnaround. And really, I mean, when we talk about segregation now at 50 years or 40 years, there is still the affirmative action thing and the quota thing is being debated, and the Supreme Court has maybe made some rulings against us. But we should really look back and see how far we have come. I hate any vestige of prejudice to exist. I go up to Reno. They had about 500 black students at the University of Reno. Before, they didn't have that many. Of course, that's not up to standard. It should be more than that. Here, you walk through the clubs here, you don't really see a whole lot of black dealers in these clubs or a whole lot of black cocktail waitresses in these clubs. MR. WRIGHT: Or black pit bosses. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 60 DR. McMILLAN: Or black pit bosses. Now, that should not exist. I mean, this black community should not sit on their big, fat fannies and let this type of thing go on when things are happening throughout the country and other places where they have gaming. And that shouldn't exist. And that's the thing that I hate to see. I think that we should be moving as a group, not only Hispanics and blacks. Hispanics may have more pit bosses, they have, and more dealers. And these people coming into the country are beginning to get jobs that we have. We are at, what, 4.5 unemployment rate in this city, in the state? We shouldn't have a welfare list in this state. These people should be training black people to work on these jobs. Why are poor people from Mexico and the other things come in and take these jobs? Do you realize that in Mississippi that next year they may put up signs? Have you read Barber what-you-call-him's column today? Barber? MR. WRIGHT: I saw it just lightly. I didn't read it carefully. DR. McMILLAN: Read it. Bob Robinson. They will have to put up Spanish signs to let the Spanish people know where to go to work and what they're doing. And this is happening in Mississippi. And it's just amazing how things are going and how much progress we have made. And it's TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 61 amazing at how much resistance we still have to eliminate segregation in this country. MR. WRIGHT: It seems like the resistance is even getting a little tighter because of the political climate. DR. McMILLAN: It seems like. I don't know why these radio programs that they have -- these people, Rush Limbaugh and all of these people -- they make a living, I guess, of trying to put this thing out. And there are people in the country that call into these things to say why there should be segregation. And I just don't understand this thing. And maybe I'm too old to understand it, but it's there. MR. WRIGHT: Sometimes I have a hard time summoning a whole lot of sympathy for white males that are discriminated against. DR. McMILLAN: Can you imagine saying the poor white male that's been discriminated against? And on the jobs that they're talking about, there are 98 percent of white people working. I just don't understand it. MR. WRIGHT: We focused quite a bit on the '60s because it was so crucial, but you've had a long and distinguished career since then. Any highlights that you want to pick out, whether your service on the school board or some other activities you've been involved in? DR. McMILLAN: Oh, I liked my time on the school board. I guess my thinking was kind of bad because evidently TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 62 people didn't like me. They didn't reelect me again. But I found some things on the school board that just amazed me. I mean, I could not understand why we could not educate youngsters. I couldn't understand why that from the first to the sixth grade we could not teach youngsters to read, write, and spell, and to do some mathematics, and why that in junior high school that we let these students escape from the sixth, from the seventh to the ninth grade in junior high school, and half of them still couldn't read and write. I mean, I don't understand that. The budget for the school district was 1.4 billion dollars, building schools and paying teachers, and teachers automatically getting a five or six or seven percent raise in pay without earning it. And I just didn't understand that. And being one person on the board, I mean, you can say these things, but you've got to have four votes to make things change. And I had some four votes to do. We had some schools built in West Las Vegas. We had one at least. The Charles West Junior High School was built in West Las Vegas. Fitzgerald school was built just before I got there. A-Tech, which is a high school, was built in the community. I worked on that before I got on the school board. But here is a high school with only 750 students in it, and we were short of seats. And I said that we should TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 63 make this a full-blown high school and people said, "No, we don't want it. We want to keep 750 students in it." And the predominant student is white. There's 50 percent white and the rest of them are black and Hispanic. That's not fair. That's not right. Things that I couldn't do, but I enjoyed my time on the school board. I've had a wonderful life. I'm married. I have a wonderful wife. We had a wonderful time flying airplanes, flying all over the country and doing things that we like to do. And maybe we didn't reserve enough funds for our retirement, but we lived and enjoyed it and had fun. I have some beautiful young children, a young boy that's nice. The older people of our family, children, are doing well. And we're glad to see that. And you know, you would wish that your family does that and develop. Maybe they're not rocket scientists, but they're all living and making a good job. MR. WRIGHT: So all in all, you're glad you responded to that postcard, fun in the sun? DR. McMILLAN: Yes, it is. That was a wonderful move that I made. Of course, we were going to go to San Diego, which may have been pretty nice because the weather was nice. My wife was born in Reedley, California, and she was used to the -- Exetor, California, I'm sorry. And we thought about going somewhere in California, but we finally stayed in Las Vegas, and we really enjoy it. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 64 MR. WRIGHT: It's been a wonderful time talking to you. You just put things so well and tie them together so beautifully. There was something, when we talked to you a while back, in regard to the proposed march in 1960. You weren't too sure how many people you could actually put out on the streets. DR. McMILLAN: That's when I talked to you about the ministers that came to meet with me and said not to have the march. Well, I was really worried because we were making these meetings. If we only put 200 people on the street and not really be a menace and mess things up, why it was just a blown plan and nothing to happen. And I was worried about it. And I said to myself, "I'll probably have to leave Las Vegas if this thing falls through." And I think the best thing that ever happened to the city and to me was the fact that we could negotiate this thing for settlement. After that, we also had some problems. We also picketed the convention center for cocktail waitresses and people to be able to work in the hotels. We eliminated the segregation, but we didn't have any jobs. And we were going to picket one of the fights at the convention center to get some jobs. Hank Greenspun helped us do this. And we had some black cocktail waitresses put in. And the county or in the city, they didn't have any TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 65 black people working at all. And we got jobs. Now we have blacks the head of these departments and that type of thing. The other thing that really was a shock, and you probably do this when you're trying to integrate or eliminate certain things like that. The West Las Vegas area, as I said before, we had three black nightclubs. We had a black grocery store. We owned property and people were doing well. We made a millionaire out of Jerry's Nugget down there because it was a thing close to the city. And when we integrated it, people would go down there and spend their money. And really, I think that maybe after two or three years with the movements in the South eliminating segregation that maybe it would have happened in Las Vegas by itself. I don't know. Maybe it wouldn't have. But if it were going to happen three or four years from now, maybe it would have been best not to do it because black people's stores and things could have developed. But I don't know. Maybe that's on my conscience. Whether I did something wrong to block growth in the black community or not, I don't know. MR. WRIGHT: So that's one of those ironies that maybe the very success might have had some unfortunate side effects. DR. McMILLAN: That's true. And you think about that all the time when you walk around and see. But the development of the businesses that we see now, we have people TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 66 selling real estate, people selling insurance, people working, people head of departments. So then I can kind of throw this out of my mind because we're still doing well, even though it did take four, five, six, seven years afterwards. MR. WRIGHT: Sure. It wasn't exactly a bluff, I guess but -- DR. McMILLAN: And that's what it is. And the odd thing about that, about that time in this particular town is that that's what happens. I don't think you could get away with it now. I think that the Caucasian people are wise enough to say, "Well, if you're going to do this, produce. Don't threaten us, produce and do it." Back then I don't think that they were sophisticated enough to realize that we couldn't do that. MR. WRIGHT: It was a lot smaller town, and the media, perspectively, much more important to the national news. DR. McMILLAN: That's right. And this happens a lot of times in the South, so rigid segregation and so many foul people there, that they were going to say, "Well, do it. You're going to have to shed some blood to do it and that type of thing." I didn't know whether that would have to happen here or not. And just so, I was lucky enough maybe to pull it off by negotiating with the bluff or threatening or however you want to say it. But you had to have enough sense with TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 67 people to make sure that maybe you could maybe pull it off. And we were lucky enough that it happened that way. MR. WRIGHT: There was one other thing I was going to ask you and got off onto some other things. There are a number of stories about some of the entertainers, and two or three in particular, that might have made important contributions. Josephine Baker -- DR. McMILLAN: Josephine Baker. MR. WRIGHT: -- and perhaps Harry Belafonte. I've heard some things about that. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah, he did. There were a few. But I remember some of the most important ones, Billy Eckstine and Nat "King" Cole, they went into the Tropicana to have a drink. MR. WRIGHT: Is this with Bob Bailey? Because I think Bob Bailey tells that story. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. And they kicked them out. Bob Bailey and I went into the Dunes. At that particular time it was still segregated. They had a black chorus at the Dunes, and my ex-wife was in the thing, and Bob Bailey's wife was in the thing. So we went out to the Dunes to sit down in the bar to wait for our wives. It was all black entertainment, okay, in a segregated hotel. We couldn't come in. We were sitting at the bar. Major Riddle came up. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 68 We had ordered the drinks, and the bartender said, "I can't serve you." Bob and I are sitting there. We knew that this was going to happen really. And Major Riddle came out and saw us sitting there. And so Bob knew Major Riddle better than I, and he said, "Hello, gentlemen. How are you?" We said, "We're fine. It's just funny. Don't you guys sell whiskey here anymore?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, we can't get a drink. I was just understanding why. You have black girls working in your show and all that type of thing." He said, "Come on now, Bob and Mac. You guys know what the score is." He said, "Give them a drink." He had the bartender bring the drinks over. So we said, "Well, okay." We left the drinks on the bar and got up and walked out and waited until the girls got off from their show to go home. MR. WRIGHT: So any of the other performers that strike you as having played a nudging role or an important role? One thing that I've heard about, I've heard this story many times, and I'm wondering if you can confirm it, that's the one about Sammy Davis and the swimming pool. Is that legend? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 69 DR. McMILLAN: Well, Sammy Davis, he was with those four. What did you call them? MR. WRIGHT: With the Will Mastin Trio, right. DR. McMILLAN: Yeah. And my only connection with Sammy is that picture that we had there where he was given an award in the Sands Hotel. And I understand that the Sands Hotel supposedly was -- come to be liberal, but I didn't see any real movement in it. There may have been one or two or three important black people that could have went in to take care of some business and stuff. But I guess also Bob Bailey's friend -- she died. She was instrumental, I guess, in doing some work, and I can't think of her name right off. I mean, Nat "King" Cole or Billy Eckstine, they didn't say, "I'm not going to work here because it's segregated." And I can't blame them. I mean, that was big money for them. And they were working. MR. WRIGHT: It was huge money. DR. McMILLAN: And I mean, we were the people that would have had to made the movement, and they backed us. Joe Williams was really -- in fact, I think Joe got blackballed because he was instrumental in talking for us and that type of thing. And I think he had a couple of jobs here, and he hasn't had a job since on the Strip here. He's worked all TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 70 over the country but not here anymore. I don't know why. But he's my very good friend and a very fine fellow, and I know that his feelings about segregation went throughout the community and maybe they just blackballed him. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah. I just heard a marvelous performance of his just a week or so ago at the community center. Wonderful occasion. Thank you so very much. DR. McMILLAN: I appreciate it. I had a good time. Enjoyed it. MR. WRIGHT: And hope to have you do it again. You know, we'll probably keep this project going for a while. So we might be calling on you again. DR. McMILLAN: It's nice about Nevada, but the part of it I'm really interested in, as I told you before, about Mississippi, which is the real thing, you know. MR. WRIGHT: It's amazing. (End of tape.) * * * * * ATTEST: The foregoing transcript of the interview was transcribed fully and accurately from the audio tape provided by KNPR Radio. Eunice G. Jones, Transcriptionist TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 ??