Las Vegas was once known as “The Mississippi of the West.”
African Americans were allowed to own homes in just one section of town, and the process of desegregation was complex and controversial.
On Monday, VegasPBS will air a documentary exploring the history of Las Vegas school integration over 20 years, from the 1960s through the 1980s.
Las Vegas native Sonya Douglass Horsford narrates the program titled “School Desegregation in Southern Nevada.”
She is an associate professor of education in the graduate school of education and College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University.
Horsford said she became interested in the effort when she started her doctorate studies in education and wanted to understand the inequality in schools.
“That really led me to school desegregation as a research question and wanting to understand that process and how that worked and how it may not have worked,” Horsford told KNPR’s State of Nevada.
Horsford said she wanted to be part of the project because it fit with the research she was doing about desegregation broadly and specifically in Clark County.
“The ability to have this academic work placed in a venue and format that is going to be able reach a much broader audience is very exciting,” Horsford said.
Lee Solonche is the education media services director at VegasPBS. He said the story of desegregation is a compelling one.
“It is the past but it’s a not that distant of a past for the Las Vegas community,” Solonche said.
He points out history in Las Vegas is really current or only one generation removed. Solonche said the documentary really shows the difference between communities who had easy access to quality education and those that didn’t.
“Parents rose up to demand the best for their children. They saw education as a civil right and they fought for that right,” Solanche said.
Horsford said although the documentary focuses on something in the city’s past it brings a message for the city’s future.
“By going back to history, we can learn not only what a particular community has gone through but the implications of other communities as they continue to be a part of Las Vegas,” Horsford said.
Dr. Sonya Douglass Horsford, senior resident scholar of education, LIncy Institute; Lee Solonche, Education Media Services Director, VegasPBS