Robert D. Bush, president National Action Network Las Vegas chapter, speaks to the press regarding a racist train display at the Galleria at Sunset Mall done by the Las Vegas Garden Railway Society over the Fourth of July weekend. Monday July 11, 2022.
Tuesday, July 12, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Las Vegas activists are calling for racial justice awareness training after an art exhibit that depicted a Black man being hung by a noose was displayed earlier this month at Galleria at Sunset Mall in Henderson.
“This image is disturbing to our community,” Grace Vergara-Mactal, executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 1107, which represents health care and public workers in Nevada, said at a protest Monday morning in front of the mall.
Las Vegas Garden Railway Society, a volunteer group that makes large-scale model railroads, had shown a long, 3-D display of different railroad scenes in the mall. One section of the display showed a frontier scene of two white men about to hang a Black man on a scaffold from a noose.
In the background was a train carrying modern construction equipment. The display was shown for four days before a concerned community member saw it and made a complaint.
Sue Jerrems, president of the Las Vegas Garden Railway Society, apologized for the display and said the society never meant to offend anyone. They didn’t see the figure as Black, but as “nondescript,” Jerrems said.
“We never looked at it as a Black man before,” Jerrems said. “It was just part of a frontier scene. It had no racist implications. Once someone pointed out the implications of it, we took it down. We apologized.”
Lindsay Kahn, director of public relations for Brookfield Properties, which owns the mall, apologized and said mall officials were “horrified” to learn about it.
The mall approved the train set display but did not know the specifics ofthe display’s intricacies. As soon as mall officials saw the display, they took immediate action and demanded the railroad society remove it, Khan said, noting the mall would never work with the organization again, Khan said.
“We’re truly sorry,” Khan said. “We want to apologize to everyone who was offended by this, and everyone should be offended. … We are horrified and truly apologize.”
Kamilah Bywaters, president of the Las Vegas Alliance of Black School Educators, said the incident was an example of a failed educational system and a lack of having Black history taught in schools.
“Black people have contributed to this country in more ways than we can even begin to count,” Bywaters said.
Paula McDonald, an adviser with the civil rights organization National Action Network, said Black slaves and railroad workers helped to build the railroad during the late 1800s, and a display could have educated people about that instead.
“We definitely refuse to be pushed back into history,” said Bishop Derrick A. Rimson with Black Leaders Collective. “(For) 50 years we have strived diligently. Many of our ancestors and our grandparents have suffered. We have lost many lives because of the fight for racism and against racism. And we refuse to allow anything, and anybody to push us back into history.”
The display had been up at the Galleria Mall several years ago, Jerrems said, and nobody took offense to it then.
“We’re just a small volunteer group,” Jerrems said. “We play with trains. We had no intention of offending anybody.”
Jerrems said she feels the group has been “crucified” over the display and will no longer show their displays in Las Vegas.
“I don’t know why they’re making a big deal of it,” Jerrems said.
Susie Martinez, president of the Nevada State AFL-CIO, said she was “appalled” when she first saw the image.
“This is not this is not the Nevada I want to live in,” Martinez said. “This is not the Nevada that we are.”
“Racism has no home here in Nevada,” Gov. Steve Sisolak said in a tweet. “This is completely unacceptable and our community deserves answers.”
