Civil rights leader Kellar dies at 93

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 | 9:47 a.m.

Las Vegas civil rights leader and attorney Charles Kellar believed a man should have a purpose.

Kellar's purpose -- to end segregation of Strip hotels and achieve equal rights for blacks -- remained strong even when detractors set off explosives in his office and fired bullets into his home.

"You intimidated Charles Kellar, and that only made him more determined to accomplish his goals," said The Rev. Marion Bennett, who will preside over an 11 a.m. Saturday memorial service at Zion Methodist Church, 2108 N. Revere St., for Kellar, who died June 25 in Long Beach, Calif., at age 93.

"I met him in 1960 when I saw him speak at G and Washington -- what a brilliant visionary. I never met a man who was more committed to helping people than him."

Bennett last saw Kellar, who traveled between Long Beach for treatment for a heart ailment and his home in Las Vegas, when he was home in June to celebrate his 93rd birthday.

"His mind was clear and we talked about the old days," said Bennett, a fellow civil rights leader in Las Vegas. "I got a chance to thank him for paving the way."

Kellar told the Sun in 1999, "Having a cause to fight for gives you a purpose, and having a purpose -- a vision to accomplish something -- is so important. That's what kept me going."

Kellar, then the chief legal consultant for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, helped bring about the accord of March 26, 1960, that allowed blacks to be guests in Strip resorts.

Kellar, who began his legal career in the 1930s in New York, filed lawsuits that led to the desegregation of Las Vegas schools and overturned local ordinances that allowed police to arrest unemployed blacks who walked on streets outside of West Las Vegas or gathered in groups of three or more.

In New York City, Kellar, a colleague of NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, won police brutality cases and got death sentence convictions of blacks overturned.

In Nevada Kellar had to struggle just to get a license to practice law. In 1960 he took the bar exam, but his name was not posted on the test results. He fought that action and in 1965 won his case before the Nevada Supreme Court and got his credentials.

Born June 11, 1909, in Barbados, Kellar and his family moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1921.

Kellar graduated from City College of New York and got his law degree from St. John's University.

Kellar was president of the Brooklyn chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and held the same post in Las Vegas in the late 1960s.

Kellar came to Las Vegas in 1959, passed real estate courses at Nevada Southern University -- today University of Nevada, Las Vegas -- became a real estate broker until he got his law license.

He is survived by Bettye, his wife of 27 years; sons, Charles Kellar Jr., of Brooklyn, and Michael Kellar, of Los Angeles; and several grandchildren.