Grocery program continues to give back — in Las Vegas activist’s name
More than a dozen volunteers chanted as Ella Johnson grabbed free food and toiletries near a Las Vegas bus stop.
“Ella, you a queen — a beautiful Black queen!” the group chanted as the 63-year-old beamed and lifted her arms in the air.
The food and toiletries Johnson received Feb. 6 across from the Bonneville Transit Station were from New Era Las Vegas, an activist group focused on the Black community and led by 26-year-old minister Stretch Sanders. Every week, Sanders organizes the Mary Wesley’s Ride Community Grocery Program, named after a prominent Las Vegas activist who fought for welfare rights in the 1970s.
Sanders said that after meeting Mary Wesley’s daughter, Yvonne Wesley, he decided to name New Era’s grocery program and pantry after the activist, who “faded back into history” along with the other women who led the welfare movement.
“Mary Wesley was somebody who fought for the poor, who fought for the Black community,” Sanders said. “She believed in feeding — she believed in clothing — those who couldn’t feed and clothe themselves.”
Sanders, who led anti-racism rallies during the summer as the country was protesting the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, said he would rather focus on helping low-income and Black communities, instead of only demonstrating.
“At the end of the day, what is that really doing if you’re not following up?” he said. “So this is a follow-up. The follow-up actually being boots on the ground, organizing in communities that actually need it, feeding people who can’t feed themselves, and creating and providing opportunities so our people aren’t forced to resort to crime to survive.”
‘She never stopped giving’
The Las Vegas group is a chapter of a national Black Power organization, Sanders said, and other chapters hold their own grocery programs named after various activists. Sanders has been handing out food with the group since February 2020, but decided in November that it was time to honor Mary Wesley and her contributions to the valley.
Yvonne Wesley, who is also a member of New Era Las Vegas, said her mother would have been overjoyed to see her legacy continue. Mary Wesley was 79 when she died on Sept. 13, 2016.
“My mom’s up there in heaven, turning over, flipping, doing cartwheels, just to see her name,” Yvonne Wesley said, imagining her mother’s reaction to the grocery program.
The 61-year-old has endless stories to tell of her mother, who watches over Yvonne Wesley’s North Las Vegas living room from a large portrait hanging on the wall.
Mary Wesley raised her eight children alone, following a divorce. She was a seamstress and ran both a cafe and a restaurant in the Historic Westside for short periods. The family moved dozens of times across the valley, but Mary Wesley always made sure her children were fed and able to play in the park or swim in Lake Mead.
“It’s like we were the richest poorest kids on the block,” Yvonne Wesley said.
Yvonne Wesley was about 8 years old when her mother started fighting for the expansion of welfare in Nevada, which at the time had cut benefits.
Her mother didn’t realize that other states had more robust welfare programs until she lived in California. When she moved back to Nevada and money was tight, Mary Wesley started pushing for similar changes in the valley.
On March 6, 1971, Mary Wesley and fellow activists, civil rights leaders and celebrities marched along the Strip, hoping to disrupt tourist-filled casinos and demand that state leaders listen to their concerns. Yvonne was only 11 when she marched with her mother right into Caesars Palace.
Mary Wesley, along with Las Vegas activists Ruby Duncan, Essie Henderson and Alversa Beals, formed the Operation Life movement. Yvonne Wesley said her mother was a planner and perfectionist who always wanted to help others.
She recalled days from her childhood when her house was full of friends and neighbors hoping for groceries or waiting on Mary Wesley to cook dinner. Her mother also worked as a cook at The Cove Hotel in the once-bustling downtown Historic Westside, and she often brought home leftovers.
Mary Wesley’s dedication to food didn’t stop at her own family. She and her fellow activists would pile into station wagons to collect food from the federal Commodity Supplemental Food Program. It didn’t matter if it was meant for low-income women and their children; they distributed the groceries to anyone in the neighborhood who was hungry.
“She never stopped serving,” Yvonne Wesley said. “She never stopped giving.”
‘I love Black people’
When Amanda Collier moved from California to Las Vegas in June, she had no idea who Mary Wesley was.
The 34-year-old, who joined New Era Las Vegas after seeing Sanders’ Instagram posts, now helps give out food every weekend in honor of the activist. Collier said on Feb. 6 that she’s reading a book about Mary Wesley and the other organizers around the welfare movement.
Collier, the organization’s food pantry assistant, said the weekly grocery program has helped improve her self-esteem and that of her daughters, who volunteer with her.
“It’s really changed my life and how I feel being Black,” Collier said.
A lot of that new self-confidence comes from the back-and-forth chanting that Sanders leads.
“I love being Black!” Sanders called out as the volunteers repeated the phrases. “I love Black people! All power to the people!”
Sanders said the food pantry is just as important as anti-racism demonstrations when it comes to addressing social inequalities in Las Vegas.
“Our focus is to help those that look like us, because no one is going to help us but us,” he told the group on Feb. 6.
As Johnson walked away from the picnic tables lined with burritos, she clutched a donated bag and beamed. She told the volunteers who called her a “beautiful Black queen” that they made her feel good.
“I love it,” Johnson said when asked about the program. “I got something to eat, I got water. This is great.”
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Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.
