SHARING THE ACCOMPLIHMENTS OF AFRICAN AMERICANS IN NORTHERN NEVADA HISTORY
START YOUR HISTORY SEARCH FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY IN NORTHERN NEVADA
Ruth Giles Jones
Publisher of The Reno Sentinel
and first Reno African American newspaper author of Reno Linkage, Ruth Giles gained an interest in journalism at an early age, when she won a prize for good journalism in the state of Michigan. Later she moved to Washington and attended business college.
In 1957, she and her sons moved to the Reno/Sparks area, where she studied journalism. In 1959 she started publishing a black newspaper called The Reno Sentinel. She gave thanks to the Sparks Tribune Staff for the help and encouragement they gave her while she worked there. She continued to publish The Reno Sentinel while she earned a associate degree as an employee for the Washoe County School System, before the Reno community College was built in Reno.
Ms. Giles wrote Reno Linkage in 1977. This book was written to tell about some of the accomplishments made by African Americans living in the Northern part of Nevada from 1861 to 1977. How they forged ahead, meeting dramatic challenges. In her book she writes that the African American population was very small in the state of Nevada in the 1800s. Virginia City had the largest number. They migrated to Carson city and later to Reno and Las Vegas, where the largest numbers live today. Ruth Giles was a member of the Orchid Club, a social club in the early 1960s.
Learn More!
UNR Special Collections: Meet Ruth Giles Jones
