Las Vegas Black History

Lunelle!!! At Harrison House celebrating Moulin Nights.

Happy National Showgirl Day! On this day in 1955, “The Moulin Rouge” opened in Las Vegas. Not only was it the first integrated casino, but its opening night was the debut of the Vegas showgirl! Here’s a photo we love of Sammy & Altovise joined by some showgirls.

What became known as Bloody Sunday occurred in 1965 in Selma, Alabama. The march was named for the 600 marchers who were attacked while crossing Edmund Pettus bridge. Law enforcement officers attacked unarmed marchers with billy clubs and sprayed tear gas.

Activist Amelia Boynton Robinson was brutally beaten by Alabama state troopers during the march. This photo drew national attention to the cause of civil rights and captured the brutality of the African American voting rights struggle.

Robinson was a leading organizer of the march, working directly with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Robinson had a history of activism, co-founding the Dallas County Voters League in 1933, and held African American voter registration drives in Selma from the 1930s-1950s.

Later that year, the Voting Rights Act passed, a landmark federal achievement of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

📸 Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © 1965 Spider Martin.