This feature-length documentary uplifts the story of 1970s Las Vegas activist Ruby Duncan and a band of ordinary mothers who launched one of the most extraordinary, yet forgotten, Black feminist anti-poverty movements in U.S. history, offering a blueprint today for an equitable future.
Based on the book “Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War On Poverty” by Annelise Orleck, the film challenges the pernicious lie of the “Welfare Queen” and highlights the visionary leadership of low-income grassroots organizers whose courage, tenacity, and dreams could not be quashed, against all odds.
After a debilitating accident while working at the Sahara Hotel, Ruby Duncan was advised to go on public assistance where she soon discovered the stigma and harassment — and inadequate safetynet — of the Nevada welfare department, and vowed to reform it.
The National Welfare Rights Organization was a grassroots movement with about 25,000 members at its peak in 1969. The four goals were: an adequate income, justice, dignity, and democratic participation. (Guida West Collection, Smith College Special Collections).
During “Operation Nevada” Ruby Duncan, Mary Wesley, Alversa Beals, and the mothers of the welfare rights movement led a march down the Las Vegas Strip. They were supported by Ralph Abernathy of SCLC and Jane Fonda an actor and activist. (Shutterstock)
Ruby Duncan and others from the National Welfare Rights Organization marching for a $6,500 guaranteed income at the Democratic National Convention in 1972.
Alversa Beals celebrating the opening of West Las Vegas’ first medical clinic at Operation Life, which she and the Clark County Welfare Rights Organization founded in 1972. (courtesy of Ruby Duncan)