Mrs. Helen Aileen Anderson-Toland

Mrs. Helen Aileen Anderson-Toland was the first African-American female principal hired in the Clark County School District, and assigned in 1965 to lead the Kit Carson Elementary School, in an area commonly known as the Westside. 

Mrs. Toland is famously known for her community yard sales to send and keep young people in school, both in Las Vegas and South Africa. She continues her international trips to Africa, to ensure and encourage young African youth a pathway to education. During apartheid at an unofficial Saturday school, she met a young man named Tulane Mkhwanazi, who had a dream to go to college. Back in the states she had yard sale, after yard sale to help raise money so he could continuously register and attend classes. Tulane graduated from electrical school and now works for South Africa’s Electrical Plant. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Mrs. Toland’s educational journey began in a one-room elementary school, with all eight grades for black children, then ultimately working as the first African-American speech correctionist for the Louisville, Kentucky School District. Her international volunteer contributions continue to include the first pre-school speech therapy program created in Kubwa-Abuja, Nigeria, for the Daughters of Charity, a Catholic Nursery School for handicapped children. Mrs. Toland, a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. an organization specifically created to promote academic excellence and provide assistance for those in need remains steadfast in giving hope through one-on-one outreach; she continues to make available her African Exhibits, consisting of artifacts from Senegal, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Liberia, Zimbabwe and South African; sharing them with multicultural programs in public schools and University level students of all nationalities, with the hopes of bridging those lost cultural gaps to Africa. Mrs. Toland contracted an artist from Zimbabwe to create five (5) pieces of sculpture to represent family and community to be placed in her front yard. In her own words to the Review Journal, “I don’t know how to put it, but everyone has a passion — and this African art is mine. I put the statues in my yard because I am happy to share them, and to show people the great things that are in Africa. So often, we don’t get to hear, touch, and see the greatness that comes out of Africa. We don’t get the positive information, mostly the negative.”

After leaving Kit Carson as principal, she accepted a leadership position at the Robert E. Lake Elementary, when schools began busing the 6th grade centers during the transition of student integration. In a post interview with the University, Mrs. Toland was asked about her racial experiences at Lake, versus the ones she experienced with Black children at Kit Carson. Her response was simple and in the spirit of the late Rosa Parks. “I Shall Not Be Moved.” We shall not be moved from loving kids. We shall not be moved from planning interesting experiences for them. We shall not be moved from the respect and regard we had for each other.” In the great State of Nevada eleven charter members of Delta Sigma Theta, had the wisdom and foresight to know that there was a need for black women to serve in the African American community. Mrs. Toland was a charter member along with Gwendolyn O’Neal Booker, Barbara Williams Curtis, Shirley Anderson Williams-Dean, Aquilla S. Williams Guy, LaFonde McGhee, Joanne Woodfork Pughsley, Eva Goins Simmons, Bobbie J. Smith, Dorothy York Taylor, and Margaret York. “Resistance fine-tunes clarity.” Mrs. Toland had the vision as Principal of the Kit Carson Elementary School to instill the love of literacy through the creative strengths of first-hand, real-life situations.