Section Menu
Women of Clark County
Anna Bailey
1926 -
Initially, the Strip was racially segregated. Casinos put rules in place to bar African Americans from patronizing the new resorts, and casino managers only hired African Americans for lower paying, back of house positions. Located on the Westside of Las Vegas, the first racially integrated hotel-casino, the Moulin Rouge, opened in 1955. It employed African Americans in the higher paying, front of house roles, such as dealers, cocktail servers, and managers. Young Black dancers, including Anna Bailey, came to Las Vegas to perform at the Moulin Rouge. Though the hotel-casino closed its doors less than six months later, it was nevertheless significant as the first racially integrated hotel-casino. Bailey went on to travel through Europe with a dance troupe. She returned to Vegas and made history as the first Black woman to perform in an all-white chorus line at the Flamingo Hotel-Casino.
Pictured: Anna Bailey (center right) with other dancers at the Moulin Rouge, 1955. Don T. Walker Photograph Collection. UNLV University Libraries Special Collections & Archives.
Sources
- Chung, Su Kim. “Recovering the History of Black Showgirls in Las Vegas.” Black Perspectives, May 9, 2022. https://www.aaihs.org/recovering-the-history-of-black-showgirls-in-las-vegas/.
- Las Vegas Women in Gaming and Entertainment Oral History Project, Claytee D. White, and 0. “Transcript of Interview with Anna Bailey by Claytee D. White, March 3, 1997.” University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Libraries, 1997. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/d18c9v491.
For questions or comments, please reach out to the Clark County Museum at ccmuseum@clarkcountynv.gov.