The Moulin Rouge and Black Rights in Las Vegas

The Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino is easily overlooked by modern-day visitors to the Las Vegas strip. Originally opened in May 1955, it quickly rose in popularity as the city's first racially-integrated hotel and casino. Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, and other A-list black singers and musicians performed at the Moulin Rouge on a regular basis, and for once they were allowed to spend the night in the same Las Vegas hotel where they performed. Sadly, the Moulin Rouge fell from fame almost as quickly as it had risen, closing its doors in November of 1955 and filing for bankruptcy only a month later. For the next several decades, the Moulin Rouge stood largely abandoned, until a devastating May 2003 fire left the hotel's signature marquee standing sad but stoic in front of the fenced-in remains of the historic hotel.This book is an original and comprehensive work of scholarship on the history of the Moulin Rouge, explaining the important role that the hotel-casino played in early desegregation efforts in Las Vegas. It addresses the many contributions that the Moulin Rouge made in transforming Las Vegas into a truly cosmopolitan city, while describing the painful journey that blacks in Las Vegas have taken in an effort to achieve equal rights from the Jim Crow era to the present day. With the Moulin Rouge as the backdrop, it provides an overall analysis of the evolution of race-relations in Las Vegas, including a detailed account of the landmark desegregation agreement which was made at a 1960 meeting between Las Vegas hotel owners, black leaders, and government officials - at the then-closed Moulin Rouge. Finally, it examines recent efforts to rebuild and renovate the historic establishment.