Black-Owned Las Vegas

The Westside

In segregated Las Vegas, the casinos employed Black workers and performers, but Black people were not allowed to attend the shows or live in the casino district. So they built their own community on the Westside, northwest of the Strip, with the amenities the city kept from them. By the 1940s and 1950s it was booming.

The Black Strip

Around Jackson Avenue, segregation gave rise to an entertainment district of its own, known as the Black Strip. The Harlem Club was the only Westside club in 1942, and by 1947 four Black-owned clubs were operating on Jackson, with the Brown Derby, the Cotton Club, Town Tavern and the Chickadee Club among the names. The Carver House and the Cove Hotel stood at 400 West Jackson, and Black entertainers who could not stay on the Strip came to the Westside clubs after their shows.

The Moulin Rouge

On May 24, 1955, the Moulin Rouge opened between downtown and the Westside, the first integrated hotel-casino in the United States. Lena Horne and Sammy Davis Jr. performed there, and Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland dropped in after their own shows. Its peak lasted only six months, and in October 1955 its doors were padlocked.

But the closed hotel had one more role to play. After a meeting held there, an agreement ending segregation on the Las Vegas Strip was signed on March 26, 1960, remembered as the Moulin Rouge Agreement.

Sarann Knight-Preddy

Sarann Knight-Preddy was the first Black woman in Nevada to hold a gaming license, for her Tonga Club in Hawthorne. The NAACP asked her to help break the color line against Black dealers, and she served on a local NAACP board. Years later she and her family bought the long-closed Moulin Rouge and reopened it, and she sold her own home to pay for the restoration.

Black Las Vegas Today

The Westside carries the history of Black Las Vegas, and Black-owned restaurants, salons, shops and brands are part of everyday Las Vegas.

Shop Black-owned businesses in Las Vegas on CashBlack.