Black history month celebrated locally

The public is invited to two events to celebrate Black History Month in Carson City.

n Dr. Elmer Rusco will make a presentation titled "19th Century: Ranchers and Thomas Detter, Author" at 10 a.m. today at the Bureau of Land Management's Carson City Field Office, 5655 Morgan Mill Road.

Rusco will concentrate on black ranchers who lived in the Carson Valley, especially the life of Thomas Detter. A barber in Elko and Eureka, Detter was known for his letters to early black newspapers in the San Francisco area. He published a book that is being reprinted.

The former director of the Bureau of Governmental Research at the University of Nevada, Reno, Rusco headed the Nevada Black History Project for several years, was a leader of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada for more than 20 years, and is a leader of the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

For more information, call P.J. McNeill at the BLM Carson City field office at 885-6112.

n The Nevada State Museum in Carson City will host Juanita Westbrook on Feb. 25. She will present the story of civil rights pioneer Alice Smith at 7:30 p.m. at the museum, 600 N. Carson St.

Smith became an advocate for equal rights after her husband, a World War I veteran, was denied admittance to a hospital because of his race. Smith advocated equal rights in the early 1940s, '50s and '60s.

Call Bob Harmon at 687-8323 for more information.