[2][3] In the 1920s no segregation laws on the books barred black citizens from participating in community life, but with legalization of gambling (1931), repeal of prohibition (1933) and completion of the Boulder Dam (1935) and with tourism on the rise, casino owners began restricting their patrons to whites only.

It had taken $3.5 million[15] to build and quickly became a sensation, appearing on the June 20th, 1955 cover of Life magazine[16] and the place where all of the A-list performers of the late 1950s performed, such as Louis Armstrong, Tallulah Bankhead, Harry Belafonte, Milton Berle, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and many others.

One of the first inspectors was Clarence Ray,[19] who would later operate the only licensed dealing school to train black dealers for work on the strip at the beginning of desegregation.

[20] In 1960, Hank Greenspun, one time owner of the Las Vegas Sun, met with city leaders and members of the NAACP at the closed Moulin Rouge to work out the desegregation agreement for all of the casinos of the Strip.

[26] Knight-Preddy became president of the Jackson Street Redevelopment Company,[27] which had plans to create a pedestrian mall along four blocks of west Las Vegas, the historic black neighborhood of the city.

They got contracts signed, were promised federal loan funds, had a feasibility study completed and made a marketing video.

[26] Knight-Preddy, her husband Joe Preddy and their son, James Walker, made another attempt to revive the Moulin Rouge in the early 1990s, and had difficulty obtaining licenses.

[29] Later that same year, Knight-Preddy got the Moulin Rouge approved on the National Register of Historic Places[30] and hoped that it would spark revitalization, but it burned in a major fire in 2003 and again in 2009.