REFLECTIONS: Sign Removed from Iconic Las Vegas Site
Katherine
Duncan
Las Vegas Sentinel-Voice, May 7, 2009 (vol. 30, iss.
2), 2,4.
There I sat, trying to be patient. I didn’t know if I should believe what I heard. I couldn’t understand my mixed emotions. The caller said it would happen between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m. I arrived early; 4 a.m. neared and I grew anxious. A news van had made it before I did.
I approached the van. I wanted answers. The cameraman came out. He, too, was tired of waiting . We were about to leave when a car pulled up and a man unlocked the gate. It was true. I bolted across the street to ask this man some questions. The guard answered carefully: He said the famous neon sign that sat atop the Moulin Rouge Hotel & Casino for more than half a century, was leaving. Headed to a secret place, where it would be restored, protected.
I should’ve been happy. But as I turned to walk away, tears fell. I waited in my car. We all waited. I tried to make sense of it. Did the sign’s removal mean the end of the Moulin Rouge? Would the city’s first interracial casino, this nationally recognized treasure, be gone forever? If so, what would that mean? The sign that stood for racial equality and the fight for racial justice – gone? Would we forget the inequities of previous generations? Would history repeat itself?
The Moulin Rouge Hotel & Casino opened at a turbulent time in American history, when Blacks were openly and systematically denied civil rights. Though generations had passed since Blacks felt the sting of the slavemaster’s whip, the ensuring century brought with it newer travails: the Ku Klux Klan, poll taxes, Jim Crow segregation, race riots, unequal access to education and housing discrimination.
Much of the enmity that fueled racially discriminatory lows could be felt right here in Las Vegas. During the early part of the 20th century, Blacks moving here for construction jobs, military service, government work and casino employment felt the pernicious sting of discrimination.
Many were happy to earn $8 a week as maids and dishwashers, prefer that work to the back-breaking, sweat-inducing labor of Southern cotton fields. “Making $8 a day and working the shade,” they’d say.
Despite making more money than their relatives still living in the South, Blacks still suffered the same indignities: forbidden from mingling with Whites, interracial marriage and patronizing White businesses. Even world-famous Black celebrities, such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Lena Horne, weren’t spared – able to perform on the Strip, but not welcome to stay at its properties.
In so many ways, the Moulin Rouge changed things. Celebrities, such as Frank Sinatra, would hang out there, in open violation of the racial divides of the day. The hotel-casino served as the launching point for a threatened march on the Strip to protest racism. In 1960, five years after the property closed after a six-month run, civic, casino and political leaders agreed to desegregate the Strip.
As I sat and reflected on the Moulin Rouge’s history, I tried to imagine other means by which the community could engage in constructive conversations about racism. What other resources, venues or facilities do we have to tell our children and others about the compelling story of Blacks in America and Las Vegas? Maybe we could rename Bonanza Road after the Moulin Rouge since the street was a historical dividing line between the Black and White parts of town.
As I sat with my eyes fixated on the sign, it occurred to me that America’s first Black president had b3een in office 100 days on the day that the famous Moulin Rouge sign came down. Does the sign’s removal mean that Blacks have achieved equality in America? That America has really changed? That all men and women are treated equally? Of course not. Sadly, Americans continue to erect monuments that divide us – be they based on class, race, political affiliation, geographic location, religious denomination, pro-life vs. pro-choice, conservative vs. liberal. Racism and separatism are as American as hot dogs and apple pie.
As the sun began to rise, I decided to go home. As I was leaving, the heavy equipment was coming in. When the crane lowered the “M”, I looked away. I took a photo with my Blackberry and drove away, with the sun to my rear, reflecting on the words of the Rev. C.T. Walker, a Baptist minister in the 1880s: “The Negro must shape his own destiny, solve his own problems, make his own history.”