Storming Caesars Palace Screening

(Ruby Duncan) When a child is starving, when they have no good housing, it's what makes me angry.

- Storming Caesars Palace tells the inspirational story of a group of determined mothers from West Las Vegas.

-You know mothers will do anything for their children.

-Mothers who became advocates for their children and for welfare rights.

-You gotta be strong.

Don't take no for an answer.

-Not taking no for an answer, they took their fight to the Las Vegas Strip.

-Something has got to happen.

We have to hit the Strip.

♪♪♪ (Reporter) A thousand marchers flooded into Caesars Palace.

-They even took on the Mob.

(Gloria Steinem) It was outrageous, marching outside the organized crime owned places.

They don't take opposition lightly.

(Sondra) It's scary seeing the police handcuffing your mother, but I got used to it.

-If I tell you nobody, we were not afraid.

I wasn't afraid.

All I wanted them to know, we wanted them food stamps.

We wanted help.

We wanted everything we could get for low-income families and especially for women and children.

-The film centers around the life of the phenomenal Miss Ruby Duncan.

(Documentary) The Clark County Welfare Rights Organization agreed this fiery woman, Ruby Duncan, should become the president.

-Now 90 and-a-half years old, Miss Ruby still has that same fighting spirit she had more than 50 years ago.

-Now I'm asking a question for seniors.

We got poverty stricken seniors here in this town.

Poverty-- families, women and children, old folks.

Look at the homeless people.

We have no right to let people be hungry in this great United States of America.

It's a shame.

-Also a shame that this powerful movement is oftentimes forgotten.

(Documentary) Nevada officials have cut out of welfare more than 1,100 families.

Vegas then was the Mississippi of the West.

Nevada had the second lowest benefits in the country.

-Miss Ruby's compelling life story, immortalized in film, thanks in part to the tenacious spirit of Documentary Filmmaker Hazel Gurland-Pooler... (Hazel Gurland-Pooler) You always hear when Mama's coming.

[laughter] -...who also didn't take no for an answer.

Completing the film took 15 years.

-It's been important to me from the beginning to not, kind of, participate in exploitative journalism, where you're kind of taking from the community but not really making sure that, you know, you're accountable to the community and that people feel like you're representing them appropriately and fairly and accurately.

-While the film centers around Miss Ruby, Storming Caesars Palace also honors the other amazing mothers who became activists in their own right and fought right alongside Miss Ruby.

-I met with other women, other mothers, and Mary Wesley and Alverso Beals who are in the film, and other women like Emma Stampley and Essie Henderson and others who didn't end up in the film ultimately, partially because they passed away along the way.

And so, you know, Miss Duncan is sort of in there in some ways because she has lived the longest and was able to tell the story for herself, but also for all these other mothers.

-These kind, caring, and powerful mothers also became visionaries and savvy businesswomen, creating Operation Life in West Las Vegas, one of the first woman-led community corporations in the U.S. -You had childcare, you had healthcare, you had housing.

We built housing.

-They also set the foundation for other organizations continuing the good fight.

(Erika Washington) When they talk about what you want to be when you grow up, no one ever told me that I could advocate for and alongside and with black women for equity issues, including affordable childcare and equal pay.

-Erica Washington, Executive Director of Make It Work Nevada, recalls meeting Miss Ruby for the first time 15 years ago and admits she was starstruck.

-She has been a mentor.

And she has been, you know, so much for me, both in a professional way and in a personal way.

I can just call her and just say, I don't know how to do this work.

I don't feel like I'm doing it well.

I feel like, you know, we're not winning.

And she said, Well, we just gotta keep fighting, baby.

-To help honor Miss Ruby, hundreds showed up at the West Las Vegas Library Theatre for a very special screening of Storming Caesars Palace .

Inside the theater, sitting front and center, Miss Ruby Duncan, who got to experience the film on a big screen surrounded by her family and friends and the family members of some of the other mothers who are no longer with us.

[cheers and applause] -Following the film, a special question and answer session with Miss Ruby Duncan, Hazel, Erika, and Claytee White, Director of the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries, who also has worked hard to make sure this important part of our history is well documented and not forgotten.

(Claytee White) Ruby was a leader when it wasn't popular and around a topic that wasn't popular at all.

And she led with dignity and with grace.

-You've seen this several times, Miss Ruby.

What goes through your mind when you see this film?

-I really want to cry sometimes, and then I laugh because I love to hear the feedback from all of the families.

I mean, it's just like I'm here with everybody that I was with during those days.

That's the way it feels, like everybody is still around me.

They were some great people.

-And if you think at 90 and-a-half Ms. Ruby is done being an activist, think again.

-I was part of the Jimmy Carter's, yeah, his White House Committee on Economics.

And on community and housing and low-income families and welfare mothers, I was his person.

-Just days before this special screening, Miss Ruby was back up in Carson City, meeting with Nevada legislators who got a special screening of the film.

And let's just say Miss Ruby made sure to give them a piece of her mind.

-Do you understand the power y'all got?

You go and work hard, and you going to get some people to agree with the needs of poor people, poor women and children.

Matter of fact, a adequate income.

A adequate income.

If you don't want to deal with his heirs, welfare recipient, with their moms, Social Security, all that bull, then I want you to think about an adequate income for every human being on earth.

-How do you want the world to remember Miss Ruby Duncan?

-Just a kind human being that wanted to make sure no one go hungry, no one go homeless, no one do not have great healthcare.

That's what I want to be known for.

Go vote.

Your whole life is in the hands of politicians.

But poor women that have children, us, we surprised a whole lot of people.