Pioneering Las Vegas activist Ruby Duncan, 5 others to be honored
A full house is expected Friday night to honor Ruby Duncan and five other women who brought the fight for welfare recipients’ rights to Southern Nevada in the 1970s.
All Shades United, a group for racial solidarity, is hosting an “Evening with Ruby Duncan,” which will be held at the Ruby Duncan Elementary School at 6 p.m. An entry fee of $5 will be donated to the fledgling Operation Life Scholarship Fund.
In addition to Duncan, former president of the Clark County Welfare Rights Organization who continues to act as spokeswoman for the organization, the event will honor Alversa Beals, Emma Stampley, Essie Henderson, the late Mary Wesley and Rosie Seals.
The women worked together to form the Clark County rights group, which was affiliated with the National Welfare Rights Organization. They campaigned to enforce federal laws and restore welfare benefits to women with children after the state slashed them. One of their greatest achievements was bringing food stamps to Nevada, which was the last state to implement them.
Famously, the women held the first protest march on the Strip on March 6, 1971, demanding welfare benefits be enforced and expanded. They were joined in the march by Sammy Davis Jr., Jane Fonda and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Duncan, who moved to Las Vegas from Tallulah, Louisiana, in 1952, and later worked for many years as a hotel maid, said organizing the mostly black financial aid recipients to campaign for fair treatment was itself a major step forward.
“The black women in those days came from the South. They were used to working in the cotton fields,” she said. “They didn’t want nobody to know they were on welfare.”
Sandra Smith, one of Mary Wesley’s eight children, said the women fed off one another to achieve their goals.
“They were all like a sister group,” she said.
The women went on to create Operation Life in 1972, which provided a range of programs and resources for the poor, including establishing a food pantry, medical clinic and library in west Las Vegas.
Now 84, Duncan has received numerous awards for her contributions to improving the plight of poor black women and children, including the Margaret Chase Smith American Democracy Award in 2008 for acts of political courage.
But Vance “Stretch” Sanders, founder and president of with All Shades United, said the women – and the movement they started – are deserving of additional recognition.
Contact Brooke Wanser at bwanser@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Bwanser_LVRJ on Twitter.
'SUPERWOMAN' REMEMBERED
Jan. 30 would have been Mary Wesley's 80th birthday. To honor her, her children and extended family, numbering in the hundreds, gathered this week at Woodlawn Cemetery.
Wesley was the chairwoman of the Clark County Welfare Rights Organization and was largely responsible for organizing the "eat-in" at the Stardust restaurant in 1972, in which about 150 poor women and their children ordered meals and then billed them to then-Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan. Two of the organizers
Wesley gave everything she had to her children, who said she worked two jobs and cooked three meals a day despite receiving only $100 each month in benefits.
Her daughters still look up to Wesley, who died in September.
"She was superwoman," said Yvonne Wesley.
Daughter Sandra Smith is looking forward to speaking for her mother at Friday's event.
"This is her last time to shine like we really want her to," she said.
