Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

by Robert Coram

In early 1960 the Las Vegas National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) told the mayor of Las Vegas that southern-style marches would begin unless the Strip was desegregated within thirty days. Mafia dons who then owned and operated many of the Las Vegas casinos thought black people were after a piece of the action. Dr. James McMillan was a dentist and leader of the Las Vegas civil rights movement. He recalled that a casino owner called the NAACP and passed along the word from Mafia leaders. The word, as it usually was when it came from Mafia leaders, was blunt: back off or you’ll be found floating facedown in Lake Mead. Dr. McMillan replied that he was not trying to cut into the casino business. All he wanted was to make Las Vegas more cosmopolitan. Opening casinos and restaurants to blacks, a new market, would make more money for the casino owners. Desegregation would be good for business. This the Mafia understood. A few days later the casino owner called Dr. McMillan again. “It’s okay. They’re going to integrate this town.” The national media picked up the story. Las Vegas would no longer discriminate in public accommodations. Black people could stay at Strip hotels and eat at restaurants there. A formal agreement desegregating all hotel / casinos on the Strip was signed in March 1960, and that is the date usually accepted for the desegregation of hotels and restaurants in Las Vegas. But three years earlier, John Boyd forced the desegregation of ...