Detter had lasting influence on Nevada’s history
By John L. Smith, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Black History Month came and went with the usual fitting tributes to iconic African-American leaders.
From Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr., the black experience in America has no shortage of historical figures. Their stories and struggles are well known, and rightly so.
But what is rarely discussed, and to my mind far less appreciated, are the contributions African- Americans made to early Nevada as the territory and young state struggled — often against the march of progress — to become a civilized place to live for all races.
Thomas Detter’s name should be better known.