The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

by Isabel Wilkerson

James Arthur Gay was perhaps the most influential colored man in the still-segregated world of Las Vegas. He had migrated there from Fordyce, Arkansas, after World War II and found himself locked out of both the mortuary trade, for which he had been trained, and the resort industry, to which he aspired. College degree in hand, he worked his way up from a cook at a drive-in to become one of the first colored executives at a casino, the Sands, at a time when stars like Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis, Jr., were not permitted to stay in hotels on the Strip. Knowing how hard it had been for him to cross the color line in Vegas, he took it upon himself to help spirit other colored people in wherever he could, risking his own tenuous standing to do so. Over time, he became the contact person, a secret agent of sorts, the one connection in an almost underground network in Las Vegas, where a colored visitor could not otherwise be assured of getting a room at a mainline hotel. Jimmy knew who to talk to in order to secure rooms for colored people at the Vegas hotels and knew how to do it discreetly, and he was in a position to screen, through word of mouth in that insular circle of colored people for whom he would perform such a service. So Robert called him. “This is Bob Foster, Jimmy,” Robert said. “Jackson and Beale told me to call you and find out if this was true. Have they opened Las Vegas up?” “You planning to come up?”