Ruby Duncan, Who Stormed Caesars Palace to Protest Cuts in Public Aid, Dies at 93

On March 6, 1971, a few thousand people marched down the Las Vegas Strip, clogging the glitzy artery through which the city’s money flowed, to protest cuts to public assistance for the poor. 

They were largely mothers on welfare and their children, but flanked by students, clergy people and celebrities like Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland—a kind of tactical human shield to deter police from beating them or retaliation from organized crime. The protesters, mostly Black, held placards that read “Don’t Gamble with Human Lives,” while counterprotesters, mostly white, held ones that read: “Do something Honest for a change.”

When the march reached Caesars Palace, its leader, Ruby Duncan—a diminutive mother of seven with a ninth-grade education—surprised even some of the protest’s other organizers by leading everyone through the doors.

“I wasn’t afraid of nothing,” recalled Duncan, who died in Las Vegas on April 26 at 93. “I had seven children and they got to be fed.”