EPISODE 11

JBMV Discussion w/ Claytee White, Director of the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries.

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Welcome to the Just Buy My Vote podcast.
I am Joseph Simmons,
the host and also author of the new book,
Just Buy My Vote,
African American Voting rights and the Chicago Condition.
I'm super excited about my guest today,
Claytee White is the director of the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries.

(00:33):
Claytee White.
Welcome to the Just Buy My Vote podcast.
Thank you so much.
It's my pleasure.
Thank you so much for taking the time.
There are several things that we could talk about in the time we have.
However,
I'd like to start by asking you to address the JBMV Avatar and I'll explain what I mean in my writing of the book Just Buy My Vote.

(00:53):
I found myself continually asking what are the best sources of American history.
So please address the JBMV Avatar if you will.
He or she is a 20 to 30 year old male or female and interested in history,
but for whatever reason was not a history major in school or maybe didn't attend college.

(01:16):
He or she is wondering,
where do I start?
Claytee White
What have you found to be your favorite or best sources.
So I really have three sources that I depend upon.
Ok,
I like these sources because they are authentic.
I know they're right.
I don't have to worry about quoting something that is not going to be correct.

(01:41):
I go to the Smithsonian's website and I go to the Library of Congress,
those I know I can depend upon.
And then for African American history,
I like to use the Chicago Defender.
That newspaper in the,
in,
in the city of Chicago that was used by people in the great migration years and years and years of African American history has been recorded by that newspaper.

(02:10):
It is an online source.
Now,
the one I use I do have to pay for,
but it's a very,
very small amount,
but I love that because it's a daily ongoing reporting kind of record of African American life coming out of the south,
going into the Midwest into the north.

(02:32):
It's just a wonderful source.
Wow.
Now this is terrific.
I don't know if you are aware that,
you know,
I'm from Chicago and read the,
the Chicago Defender for many,
many years.
What version of that is that you refer to?
I don't know what you mean by what version the,
the paid subscription,
I mean?
Oh,
there,
there's an online newspaper source and I think I just go to newspaper dot com and I think that's where my subscription is and under that subscription I can go to almost any newspaper in the country.

(03:05):
Gotcha.
Ok.
I understood.
So that allows you to go on really beyond just the Defender.
You've got everything.
Definitely.
I can go to the Norfolk Journal and guide that.
I used to read a little when I was growing up because I had an aunt who lived in Portsmouth,
Virginia and she would bring a stack of papers to us in a Ahoskie, North Carolina.

(03:29):
So I can look at any newspaper from that time period of the fifties,
sixties,
seventies that I like.
Wow.
Love that,
love that you have another source.
Uh,
I think those are the three good sources,
especially if you're a young person and you want to go beyond tiktok and other things like that.

(03:51):
If you want something that's stable,
that's dependable.
I think those are three of the things where you can start.
Nice.
Now,
I gotta press you on your favorite book for American History.
Well,
my favorite book changes.
Ok,
good.
Right now my favorite book is 1619.

(04:12):
Wow.
Ok.
I like that book because the chapters are small.
So if you are a person who really does not like to read,
it's still something that you will pick up and you will read 10 pages or five pages,
it's well written.
It's written by many historians.

(04:33):
So it's not as if you are taking the word of just one researcher,
but you are reading across time and you're reading from the perspective of many people who've done a lot of research.
So I love that book.
Right.
That's,
uh,
I've heard,

(04:53):
I've heard nothing but great things about it.
Do you have?
What was your source before that?
Uh Probably something like,
um,
there is an older book called Before the Mayflower and that was a book that was written by a person whose name I cannot think of right now.

(05:15):
But a well known author been around for years and years.
I like the Miseducation of black folks.
So there are,
there are a whole series of books on my shelf about African American history that I go to often understood.
Understood.

(05:36):
Uh sounds like before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett Jr.
That's correct.
That's exactly who it was.
And something tells me there's also a Chicago connection there.
I believe I knew the younger Lerone Bennett.
Yes,
he was,
he's been around for a long,
long time.
Um I like the way he writes because it's not just for an academic crowd.

(06:00):
It is for anyone,
I would say 8th,
9th grade on who's really interested in learning history.
You might not have had history since the fifth grade,
but you can pick this book up and he is writing for you.
Yeah,
that's a great book.
I,
I actually am somewhat familiar with that because my dad was a big reader and he had that book around the house for years when I was growing up and he wrote for the Ebony magazine as well.

(06:28):
Right.
Right.
So I'm gonna shift gears just a little bit.
And could you tell us what the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries?
So,
the Oral History Research Center is the entity on this campus that collects the history of our local area.

(06:50):
We collect that history depending upon the subject matter that we're investigating.
At that point.
Let's say that we want to talk about the Jewish community in Las Vegas.
So we are out in the field interviewing Jewish people who came here early on and they are telling us about early life and their life here in Las Vegas.

(07:15):
If there is a community here that we are interested in learning more about,
let's say a community of,
of guys who played on the Las Vegas strip behind some of the greats in the music industry back in the 19 fifties,
sixties and seventies when we had live orchestras here,

(07:36):
then we have a series of interviews with them.
So we are collecting the history of this town by the oral experience.
So people tell us what actually happened.
So we don't have to just go to a newspaper or go to an archive to look at a manuscript collection.

(07:56):
We can also collect history from people,
people who experienced it and we ask them all kinds of questions,
questions that you won't get.
If you are looking at a book or other sources that you might use to gather your history,
but you're listening to a person who's talking from the ground level upward,

(08:21):
not just the mayor of a city or the president of the United States,
but someone who worked in a casino as a maid,
someone else who worked as a bartender.
We're getting their stories about life in Las Vegas.
The value of firsthand accounts.
That's correct.
How did,

(08:41):
how did the Oral History Research Center come about?
So you,
you probably know that they are all across the country.
Uh UCLA has one.
Berkeley has one.
University of Chapel Hill has one Cornell in New York.
They're just all over the country started back in 1965 during the Civil Rights movement.

(09:05):
But the one here at UNLV was,
uh,
we've only been in business for 20 years.
The research of the Oral History Research Center for the State of Nevada was located at UNR back in 1965 supported by the state,
but the state never funded that center well enough to conduct histories throughout the state as we need it.

(09:31):
So people here at UNLV,
here in the South decided that we would find a way to start our own center and we didn't start until 2003.
And I'm the first director of that center of this center.
So you're celebrating 20 years there,
20 years.
We're having a big celebration in about three weeks Wow.

(09:53):
Wow.
Well,
I hope I'll get an opportunity to hear about that at least.
Oh,
yeah.
Oh,
yeah.
It should be wonderful.
Fantastic.
Uh,
I got a question for you.
How did you get into this business?
I'm gonna,
I went back to school late in life.
I didn't get my master's degree.
When I finished my bachelor's degree.

(10:15):
I took off many years.
But eventually I decided that it was time to get more education.
It was one of the things that I've enjoyed doing,
going to school,
getting a Bachelor's degree had been amazing.
So when I was about mm 40 plus,

(10:36):
I moved to Las Vegas decided that I want,
wanted a master's degree in American history,
entered the master's program here.
And at that same time,
the chair of the history department said it's time for us to collect our oral history of Las Vegas.

(10:57):
We need to teach some people how to conduct oral histories.
So they invited all of the history majors,
history faculty to sit for all of the workshops and seminars that they were gonna hire people and bring in at no cost to us and that we could take all of those workshops.

(11:20):
And at the same time that I was going back to school,
there must have been six or seven of us same age range and we were all going back to school at the same time just having a great time.
And all of us volunteered to learn how to conduct oral histories.
And then when they got ready,
when we finished,
and we thought we knew everything about oral history.

(11:41):
We did a project,
all of us were female and we did a project called Women In Gaming and Entertainment.
The person who had grown up here said everything written about Las Vegas is all about men.
So let's do something about women.
So we did and that allowed us to start collecting oral interviews.

(12:02):
People here in the city were excited about what we were doing and they finally got money together to start an oral history center.
Interesting.
So if I walk in your doors,
what do I see or what,
what,
what,
how,
how do I go about my,
uh my,
my exploration there.
So first you would go on your computer and you would go to the library here at UNLV.

(12:27):
And you would find there a manuscript collections,
all kinds of photograph collections and you would find oral histories and you would click on oral histories and you would start looking at some of our projects and pulling up some of our interviews and reading them online if you wanted to.
And then you would find that some of them haven't been processed completely and you would have to come into our doors to sit down and listen to them or to actually read them.

(12:57):
Interesting.
How,
how do you decide what your subjects will be?
We have at one point,
we had a whole list of topics that needed to be investigated and we just started thinking about Las Vegas and what we need to,
to learn more about.
So that's how we started the projects.

(13:18):
First.
It was early Las Vegas.
We wanted to interview as many people who come here as close to the beginning of this city as possible.
We were a brand new city,
didn't start until 1905.
So in the beginning of the center to find somebody who came here in the 19 thirties and forties was very possible.

(13:41):
So that's what we decided to do.
Let's do early Las Vegas.
Then after that,
we,
we came up with other topics and our next topic,
we just finished the Asian American Pacific Islander project.
We always add additional interviews to a project even when we say it has ended.

(14:03):
But let's say we find somebody from early Las Vegas and they want to be interviewed.
We will interview them right now,
but our next project is going to be sports.
Mm.
And we have a long history of boxing and softball and tennis and hockey and soccer.

(14:25):
And we just have a wonderful history and as you know,
we have a history of the,
now we have a football team for the first time,
professional football.
We have the Raiders here.
So all,
all of that starting back from you had your softball teams,
we'll start there and we'll work our way forward.
Fantastic.

(14:45):
That sounds like a big project as you know,
I mean,
you just mentioned the fact that Las Vegas is kind of blown up in terms of sports and what have you with the A's, and the fighting in addition,
not just boxing but fighting,
right?
They're talking about bringing a bad baseball team here.
And so it is going to be a three year project and we are going to just selectively interview a few people per sport.

(15:15):
So it's not as if we gonna conduct 20 interviews with the Raiders.
It will be more like three interviews with the Raiders and three interviews with,
uh,
our soccer team.
But we're gonna have a problem with boxing because there are so many people here and they are still here that we have to interview Mayweather and Tyson and the list just goes on and on.

(15:44):
Right.
Yeah,
you can see Tyson,
you can almost catch him at the gym sometimes.
Ok?
I would,
I would just add,
I know you don't listen to somebody like me,
but in terms of baseball,
I would put my bid in for Reggie Jackson just because he's a legendary Oakland Athletic.
Well,
you're right.
Well,
so,
so do you think we're gonna get the Oakland A's,

(16:06):
that's the way they're talking about it,
you know,
and I know when I moved here 20 years ago,
uh,
I think Reggie Jackson was trying to get a team here way back then.
So it seems like he would be a great person to talk to.
Oh,
well,
thank you for that because I did not know that about him.
Absolutely.
I mean,
of course,
you know,
he's a legend in terms of baseball,

(16:28):
Mr. October.
That's correct.
So now you mentioned back,
uh you,
you reflected back on when you were studying for your bachelor's and then came back and got a master's.
Let me ask you this question with the time we have left.
What's one piece of advice you'd offer
to your 20 year old self? To my 20 year old self.

(16:52):
So I've always liked to read.
So I wouldn't have to say that to myself,
but I would say learn to use money wisely and to spend it wisely.
Ok
When it comes to education,
I would tell my 20 year old self to get as much education as possible.

(17:13):
If you're thinking in the back of your mind about a PhD go and get it.
You,
we live until we,
we're gonna live until what,
85 or 90 years of age.
It doesn't make any difference how long it takes,
do it.
You're messing with me,
Claytee. Well

(17:35):
this,
this has been a real pleasure for me,
Claytee White.
Thank you so much and thank you for sharing with our listeners today.
Thank you so much.
Well,
well,
we hope you enjoyed that episode of the Just Buy My Vote podcast.
We're looking forward to the next episodes,
you can find the book at Just Buy My Vote dot com and feel free to follow us at Just Buy My Vote podcast dot com for notification on upcoming podcasts and events.

(18:08):
We thank you for the privilege of your time and until next time Just Buy My Vote.