James B. McMillan
(1917-1999)
Nevada’s First African American Dentist
James B. McMillan, the first African American dentist in Nevada, successfully fought against segregation in Las Vegas in the 1960s. He was born in Mississippi, where, as a small child, he saw his mother horsewhipped by the Ku Klux Klan and witnessed a lynching victim hanging from a tree. His mother brought the family north, ending up in Detroit.
As the only black player on the University of Detroit football team, his football scholarship was revoked in his junior year because he was dating a white girl, so McMillan paid for the rest of his education by working in an auto factory. He entered dental school in 1941 and practiced dentistry in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of captain.
After leaving the Army, McMillan set up private practice in Detroit, but decided to leave its cold winters behind and move to Las Vegas in 1955. Jim Crow policies in Las Vegas had earned it the name “The Mississippi of the West,” so he was not surprised to receive a cool reception when he arrived. Even after he passed the Nevada dental examination, it took months for the Board of Dental Examiners to license him. The local dental association didn’t welcome its new member and the dental wives’ club disbanded rather than welcome his spouse.
McMillan became involved with the local branch of the NAACP and was soon elected its president. As president, he led campaigns that focused on segregation in jobs, housing, and public accommodation. One of his first projects was a boycott of a local dairy that delivered milk to West Las Vegas but wouldn’t hire African Americans as delivery men. After a boycott of that dairy led to its bankruptcy, the remaining dairy changed its hiring practices.
In 1960, inspired by successful “sit-ins” in the South, the local NAACP chapter decided to target casinos and restaurants in Las Vegas, where African Americans were routinely denied admission. Famous entertainers were not even allowed to stay in hotels on the Strip where they were headlining. Led by McMillan, the local branch of the NAACP threatened demonstrations if nothing was done about segregation.
Their push for change was a success. Most hotels, casinos, and restaurants started accepting non-whites in their facilities, effectively ending segregation on the Las Vegas Strip. The agreement with casino owners and the civil rights activists, worked out at the Moulin Rouge hotel, became known as the Moulin Rouge Agreement. Later, McMillan organized another march and boycott that led Strip and downtown casino operators to agree to hire African Americans in positions other than as porters and maids.
McMillan helped establish the local Black Chamber of Commerce and later served as its president. He was founder of the Las Vegas Human Rights Commission and was the first African American to serve on the State Democratic Central Committee. As a lobbyist, he advocated at the Nevada Legislature for better housing, employment, and overall better treatment of minorities across Nevada. Going full circle, Governor Mike O'Callaghan appointed him to the Nevada Board of Dental Examiners in 1971 – the same organization that had tried to deny his dental license when he first arrived in Las Vegas.
[Photo courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas]