Title supplied by cataloger.; Scratch marks appear along the right side of the original photograph. Rolland Joseph 'Speedy' Curtis was born in Louisiana in 1922. After serving three years in the Marines during World War II, he and his wife, Gloria, relocated from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1946. Curtis served four years with the Los Angeles Police Department, but resigned from the force in order to pursue both a Bachelor's and Master's degree from USC. He later became involved in city politics, as an associate of Sam Yorty, and later a field deputy to City Council members Billy Mills and Tom Bradley. He was briefly director of the Model Cities program in 1973. Rolland J. Curtis died in his home in 1979, the victim of a homicide. An affordable housing complex on Exposition Blvd. near Vermont Ave. was named in his honor in 1981, along with a nearby street and park.; The Biltmore Hotel, now named Millennium Biltmore, was designed in 1923 in a modified Italian Renaissance architecture by architects Schultze & Weaver. It has 1,500 rooms and is 14 stories high. The legendary Biltmore Bowl, originally called 'Sala de Oro,' was located inside the Biltmore Hotel. The ballroom was host to eight Oscar ceremonies in the 30s and 40s, but in the 1950s, it suffered a devastating fire and was not rebuilt. The main address for the Millennium Biltmore is listed as 506 S. Grand Avenue, but the eastern entrance address is 515 S. Olive Street. Pictured from left to right are: Charles Curtis (brother of Rolland Curtis), Louise Ridgle White, Mathilda Curtis (mother of Rolland Curtis), and Assemblyman Reverend F. Douglas Ferrell are shown at the Biltmore Bowl during a testimonial dinner that was held in honor of Leon H. Washington Jr, publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel (not pictured). Mathilda Curtis can be seen holding a newspaper copy of the Los Angeles Sentinel, with the headline, "Don't spend where you can't work" - a campaign that urged its readers to boycott establishments that refused to employ African Americans. The event was held on April 16, 1964. See images 00125502; 00125551; 00134155; 00134218, and 00139978 through 00139980 for additional photos in this series.
Type
image
Format
1 negative : safety ; 10 x 13 cm. Photographic safety negatives
Curtis, Charles,--Jr White, Louise Ridgle,--1928- Curtis, Mathilda Ferrell, Frederick Douglas,--1944-1982 Millennium Biltmore Hotel (Los Angeles, Calif.) Biltmore Bowl (Los Angeles, Calif.) Los Angeles Sentinel African American men Men African American women Women African American clergy Clergy Brothers Mothers Dinner parties Hotels Floral arrangements Newspapers Fur garments Fur Smiling Posing Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments Downtown Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.)
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