Meet community activist Ruby Duncan

Black history is undeniably American history. The story of this great county is interwoven with the names, stories and accomplishments of Black Americans who gave everything they could to make this place a more tolerable place for ALL people to live.

In February America celebrates our Black History, recognizing the contributions, gifts and sacrifices that have helped move our country forward. In Nevada we are lucky to have a living legend, a mother who wanted a chance to work and earn a living wage to feed her family and ensure that the state was doing its due diligence. If you don't already know her, let us introduce you to Ruby Duncan.

Ruby Duncan came to Las Vegas as a young woman and lived with relatives in a wooden shack in East Las Vegas when it was still a desert. Her first job in Las Vegas was a housekeeper for a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip where she was fired for organizing her coworkers to demand fairer working conditions. 

The lack of opportunities for the poor in Vegas became apparent when Ms. Duncan discovered job training programs were being inexplicably cut and the state continued to reject federal money that would’ve gone toward providing food stamps, job training and other services for the working poor.

As she did with her housekeeping co-workers, Ms. Duncan began to organize her community and poor mothers. Like many community organizers before her she was an amateur, having never spoke in public the first time she addressed the state legislature in Carson City, but she had the passion and drive to lead the fight for justice. They led a a rally of Las Vegans who literally stormed the hotel Caesar's Palace. They demonstration lasted for weeks and Caesars and other Strip hotels saw their earnings cut in half as the news reached national levels. 

‘Storming Caesar's Palace’ beautifully retells how Ms. Duncan and other mothers joined forces to fight their own war on poverty, eventually building one of the country’s most successful antipoverty programs.

To learn more about Ruby Duncan, visit her website: rubyduncan.com