Road to Las Vegas

Yeah average American is going to move 10 to 12 times in their lifetime. When blacks migrate However they demonstrate several unique fractal. Rugs who migrated to Las Vegas for $4 Arkansas and to Louisiana exemplified continuity adaptation and change. As they move to a new and different environment. Las Vegas was little more than a dusty desert when the town was established in 1905. Even in its early days Las Vegas had a small group of black residents. In 1930 when the government announced plans to construct a Hoover Dam. There were one hundred and fifty blacks living in Las Vegas when construction began. Blacks joined the thousands of workers who migrated to the desert community.

However the six companies construction corporation contracted to work on the dam refused to hire Negroes and investigation by the secretary of the interior led to a change in that policy in 1932. Despite that of the several thousand member construction force only 44 were black. The 1940 census listed one hundred seventy eight black residents in Clark County. They comprised little more than 1 percent of the population. In 1941 the federal government announced another major construction project that transformed the racial demographics in southern Nevada. The world's largest magnesium plant would be built 20 miles southeast of Las Vegas in what is now Anderson Nevada. Construction of this plant brought the first mass migration of blacks to Las Vegas a manpower shortage prompted basic magnesium officials to conduct a search for workers in the south.

They did it over the radio and you'll be able then different people go on they come and that's when the new rule. Went out to the employment office that BMI work and they gave me a badge. It's estimated that 80 percent of the black families migrating to Las Vegas in the 1940s came from Fordyce Arkansas and to Louisiana Las Vegas is located fifteen hundred miles west of the little dot and Fordyce a city noted for neon lights gambling and entertainment. Las Vegas provides a stark contrast to the rural lifestyle of the Deep South. Fordyce is a lively sawmill town nestled in the densely forested area of south Arkansas. What I said was established to be the end of the 19th century when the sawmill was constructed.

Many blacks left backbreaking work in the cotton fields and moved into town to find employment at the Fordyce mail mill work and offered more job security but was not without hazards. Well I can remember back the stories of some of our customers tell me have was a little forward back of groundhogs all male days and invariably they're when they talk about you get a look at their hands and their fingers. They were injured when they worked in the. Black male workers lived in shotgun houses reminiscent of plantation slave porters and were located near the sawmill on the number yards in spite of poor living conditions black white relations in the 1930s and 40s were outwardly civil and Fordyce on the surface. The course of daily life ran smoothly. And there were no civil rights demonstrations in the Arkansas lumber mill town.

We didn't have innovation able to take the wood. We didn't have integration as you know like in Alabama. But I think having lynxes Now that's using Yeah to miss if we didn't have it probably all residents feel that the race is peacefully co-existed because blacks in Fordyce know their place and did not violate the unwritten social barriers. Only problem really had been my I couldn't go into any place that I wanted to go in. When you take a group of people who is not aggressive then the racialist of the resistance never manifested itself because they had no reason to. It seemed to have been on the stand that blacks had a plate and you stay in your place and everything's fine. Little has changed in Fordyce in the last 40 years. Rocks can now own the mill corridors they once rented but there's still no indoor plumbing and no whites live there.

100 miles to the southeast Lystra Louisiana a slow paced agricultural town located in the Mississippi River Delta. The racial discrimination in the lower is more visible than in Fordyce at the turn of the century. The Loner was known as the lynching capital of the South. It was not until the late 1950s and early 60s the blacks began to participate in the mainstream of political and business activity into little the Nevada State Senator Joe Neel was instrumental in promoting this activity in his boyhood home when he organized voter registration and the loader and the adjacent

mounds plantation. I went back. Two mounds and nineteen sixty and started a movement to get people to to register and which they had not done in 95 years. In that particular area up until that point and we were successful in bringing a lawsuit in which I was a part of and instigated to give them you know the right to vote. Many of those who moved from Fordyce into little to Las Vegas faced similar forms of racial prejudice. They were barred from entering major restaurants hotels and gambling casinos and most made their homes in cardboard shanties or tents that were little huts. One room huts made of look like a light board and out nice sensitive places the toilets. When we first moved to Las Vegas housing was limited to one area.

The price is where high then the odds where not the very greatest lot of us live better houses than for I to live in shacks here. But climate was much better so we were able to progress. Anyway the black migrants to Las Vegas also faced racial discrimination at work in the early 1940s one of the first Labor disturbances occurred to basic magnesium plant. This track came on because. They had a superintendent Bevere I think his name was old too and he proceeded to roll divide the watch out of this. He said it was their intention to separate the white from the black and it just didn't go over. And then everybody just walked out. Despite reports of discrimination many families packed their bags and made the fifteen hundred mile trek to Las Vegas Jimmy gay moved to the gaming capital

in 1946 and eventually landed a job as assistant manager of a Union Plaza Hotel. He tried to convince his friends and relatives to move to Las Vegas. I encouraged him to go out to Las Vegas because they were they were making major salaries and so forth and I suggested to many of them that this would be a haven for them compared with what for a guy for as money is concerned we do when freight moved to Las Vegas in 1943 in Fordyce. She made three dollars a week as a domestic worker. But in Las Vegas she earned six dollars a day working in the homes of well-to-do white families. I moved to Los Vegas mainly because I could make more money here. I was working and for it I thought I was making very much money and my aunt was here about. Oh a

couple years of slowly before I came out here and she just enticed me to come because I could make more money. My mama's cousin called Hall called Say come out here you can get 90 dollars a week and my daddy said at the testing site he can get $140 and that will be a great help. So that's what the salaries were so much better in comparison to what they were here. Angela Lucy O'Brien Chuck Compton and perform domestic work for $5 a week. In 1953 she decided to leave home in hopes of earning more money and lives for it. I came to get the word and it was so good out here. Make it eight dollars a day I was making that much in a weekend a little eight dollars a day and I got a job the very first day can I just remember the very first day I got a job at the air just eight dollars a day I got on my knees in that hotel room and gave Garth thanks. Eight dollars a day and working in the shade. I mean I was very thankful that very same day. Yes indeed that's why I came.

When we look at the migration of blacks in the various periods in American history we find that the causes for Migration have been similar to the causes of migration of other groups that is economic and social conditions have led to migration to a large extent black American migration has been a group experience most migrant from Fordyce into little expected to find work to make enough money to help the family back home. They left in two three and Carlo but hardly ever alone. Many traveled in car driven by special recruiters who were paid $25 a head. Other migrants came by bus. The Last Frontier Hotel and Casino recruited culinary and domestic workers and paid one way bus fares to Las Vegas mill owners and employers in both the little and Fordyce resented the drain on manpower. They encouraged local bus stations to stop selling tickets to blacks headed for Las Vegas. But the promise of prosperity in Las Vegas was tempered by the harsh realities of the desert

winds that someone would just absolutely Oh you want a yes or no. Some nights you have to undo your bed and shake it and seems to be able to get some sleep about the grip. You know your body you know and. Well the type of houses that we were living in was no way to keep it out. They were just homes about stucco you know just boards put up new rules for one year he had more or less you know this migration from two small Shaaban communities demonstrates a degree of unity that is not as easily identifiable in the groups. We found that among African cultures they are very unique kinship systems that at work and in most of the societies and I'd argue that elements of this are these kinship systems have been carried over among black Americans.

There's a view of life centers on a group rather than the individual among black Americans coming from their African roots that wherever they go. Tend to maintain a sense of home and that sense of peoplehood that comes from that kinship system from Africa based upon the extended family the lily Hardy and from a family of two little exemplifies this can ship system after a year from a slave. Emphasize the importance of close family ties. This is my great grandmother Mamie Hardy Anthony and he's the root of the whole clan and my great grandmother had the children she was born a slave and partly reared us like a mother with go away from her and someone as Riyadh has though we couldn't go in to buy the bag because we don't know you know who her mother was now.

I used to pray love. Time ago we would never have free you know time the Lord keep the family of Lily Hardy and the need to gather always and pray that we didn't was just at the time but they always instilled in us to love each other and always want the one that you're so so close together that was followed by the other. Family members are formally organized themselves with chapters into a little of Las Vegas to Los Angeles and Detroit. More than 500 family members gathered at the last reunion. Talk about people when they come within even a family you know my love one the kind we have with me is not a town you know visit as one to be in a family does come and see as we would you know you know and I was with you because there's so many families there's not close and people don't get together and do we do I think is with a great I'm very proud about it. I like great about it you know I think it's terrific. During periods of migration elements of a black and ship system encourage the regulation of morality and provide protection and comfort and security.

Right. It's been shown that when blacks migrated to Harlem New York in the 20s for example that when blacks met on the street that the first thing they ask is Where are you from. And they said well I'm from Arkansas or I'm from Louisiana. And if two Arkansans meet that's enough too is that are the kids take kinship. OK we're from the same place so that makes us brothers in a sense. And they call each of the homey and homeboy. So Homeboy. So they become a support system from each other but they're from the same county of the same city. You know that was I mean they were tight from then on. And historians have found this evident in most of the places to which blacks have migrated. But you do have the association of that family life and families you know staying together

you would find in this area that you would have less black people that would be put into a nursing home. You see because usually it's been I had it too. If you have a family you keep that person at home you know until they die. Neil was raised on one of the largest plantations in the little area at one time the mounds plantation encompassed 30000 acres and employed some 400 and 25 black sharecroppers. Despite the size of the plantation Meo feels a closeness to his former friends who seem like family. The family relationship a very tight here and you still have that connection between family that's living here in the family that live in Sanford I saw you in the little mound that connection still exists. You still find a large number of people in the holidays would be making a long trek back to lose Santa making a long trek

back dock himself to visit you know that family so the family time is a steal. Still strong relationships were always from the same hometown can be as tightly knit is building between right relatives. Edward and Beatrice Jin now moved to Las Vegas in 1943 and established a close family like ties with other Fordyce migrates Richardson I was a grandmother when she arrived in Las Vegas as an older woman in the group. She took on the task of caring for the children of other Fordyce migrants as well as her own grandchildren. I just kept they'd bring him to bed and I bake at those babies and put them into bed with the Tele get ready. You know like I give them the break. Later love took care of after. The four nights club was formed to meet these needs. It provides a structure and ritual needed to perpetuate the kinship system in Las Vegas as well as Fordyce 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0. Yes we were really neat about it was you don't know how this close up to see the forest for the cold. Just keep that close feeling the tween family members brains in their bio it was from the area you know to try to hold on to that task and. I think you might say so I want to pay for my daughter got homesick and lost a leg and they want to create that same atmosphere there. So this way we keep in touch. We know once a year we're going to see. Maybe the last leg of the movie for I was Arkansas you know people tend to stick together even though we have lots of charities most. Almost in any church you can find several members from Fordyce. And it's the same with jobs.

Juanita Simmons helped organize the first Fordyce club in Oakland California in 1946. When she moved to Las Vegas. She helped form the Fordyce club where it has more than 100 members. The parent club in Fordyce serves as a central meeting place. Major unions such as the one held in 1900 to bring all the chapters together one of the factors that led to the formation of the club is the deeply embedded sense back home. That allegiance inspires the group the charter buses for one annual Group trip back to Fort eyes. Me now. You. Get. Your. Regular. Now one big happy family and we you and the playing you know the child. We it states that we are to look back

together to see that no one goes without. As long as we have been able to help that person that person doesn't have to be a member of the board Islip just being from Fordyce This is our obligation to see that that person will not suffer from lack of attention. Another major factor contributing to the unity of the migrants from too little and Fordyce is religion. Most of the family that I know very spiritual incline and they attend church and I believe that you know the whole claim to believe in God and I think this is why the family as a whole is so close. To home. They're all very worried.

And absolutely the Baptist church was set up at this particular attack and we would all go down to the Baptist church and just have a good tan. You could hardly make of it fast enough because you see they had that old bread and bone religion so this is what the people were looking for what they were used to. The church has been has played a much greater role as a central intra institution or American blacks then for many other groups simply because they were excluded from so many other groups and that when white Americans first began to tolerate blacks having in their own

institutions the church was one of the first that was allowed them so that they expanded the functions. Of that institution to encompass all those areas all those institutional areas of education social life economic all those areas that they were excluded from outside were functions that were picked up by the black church. During the prayers 40 years racial attitudes and economic conditions in Fordyce have changed the timber industry has been modernized. Diversify our job opportunities there and Mabel moderate Brantley to return to Ford I now have no way to make a living. In for the I thing in when I did go to I came back. She's now employed at the Georgia Pacific. Why would. The latter leave this on the Palin factor in the thing.

And way that they feel to relieve the graveyard shift. Would help. That's a tool. And two fellows. And. One only thought of the latter. And we used to get the been there from the. From the press. Was very hot. Yeah Bell blows. And then real facts that are we upgrading it. Take the splits in the I love not holes with all those out of the fellow up on the footpath. And when they find that out. For what I see is a close community both black and white and we're all mixed together. The things that I enjoy is when those people come back from Los Vegas they always come in to visit with they may have bought something from mother to three years ago and that's how we got to know

them but they always come back and visit. They're friendly and we're friends and I believe that's the way forward I think is just a good little friendly tailor that's that's what we study close. This is home. It's home where I go I know I'm from Florida. That's my home. There will always be my home without your band no the little Jewish changed. Well that have great opportunities into Lula now and that would a time of the migration to Las Vegas and other places west blacks becoming involved in a wider range of activities. Economically. The opportunities are here and government and business and other aspects of livelihood that were not available to them. When they migrated west we decided to come back here because we said Well now

the school salary has reached $90 per month and we can make it with 90 dollars a month rather than 35. So we came back because we thought we could do a little bit better. Most of those who migrated to Las Vegas were never moved back to their little Fordyce yet they will always remember their roots. I think it is important that we document the Fordyce Las Vegas experience because it serves as a model for what other families can do to strengthen or re-establish the kinship system or the extended family system that we once knew much better than we know now. The migration from Fordyce into demonstrates a sense of continuity and tradition in this mobile society. The extended family unit developed from African

kinship systems has been preserved despite the contrast in lifestyles between the Old South. And the West. There is a future generations to come. Where.