In the 1950s and 1960s, the Copa Room at the Sands Hotel and Casino featured glamorous showgirls. For a few years, the Houston Chronicle sponsored a contest that added the Texas Copa Girls to the line. In 1958, one of the winners was 17-year-old Judith Lee Johnson. For the "wild" but "naive" Judy, the experience was a period of funfilled freedom, followed by relentless encouragement of others to attend college, which she reluctantly did. To her surprise, she embraced the college life, took her studies seriously, and received an education degree. She also became Miss Houston. Four years later she returned to Las Vegas and the Sands. As she stepped into her role as a showgirl this second time, she was no longer the newbie. She experiences the lifestyle with more maturity. She talks about the celebrities she met, the lasting friendships she formed, performing in the Elvis movie Viva Las Vegas, and her trip around the world, a trip that included her personal dream of going to Paris. Judy shares details of her family heritage and she wonders to what extent she might have been living her mother's dream. Though her love of performance and theatre is keen, Judy channeled her passions into a 29-year career as an educator. She married a Marine in 1965, raised their children, moved with his career. She and her husband, Walter F. Jones, live in Virginia.
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From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Personal and professional papers file.
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Phyllis Friedman discusses the local productions of "The Laramie Project" play performed at area high schools. She talks about the different reactions from the community to the production, and the involvement of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
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Newspaper article featuring Lucretia Stevens. She moved to Las Vegas in 1923 when the town was about six blocks square and about 60 people made up the black community.
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Newspaper article featuring information about the Negro National History Week events taking place in schools and churches in February 1965.
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In this audio clip, J. David Hoggard discusses the local chapter of the NAACP in Las Vegas and the Human Relations Commission.
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Oral history interview with Dr. Porter Troutman conducted by Claytee D. White on November 20, 2006 for the UNLV @ 50 Oral History Project. Troutman discusses his activism in the Civil Rights Movement during college. He also discusses working for the National Teacher Corps and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in multicultural education.
Archival Collection
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