Storming Caesars Palace: PBS Documentary Screening + Q&A with Author Annelise Orleck

Annelise Orleck’s Storming Caesars Palace tells the story of the revolutionary Black women welfare organizers of Las Vegas who spearheaded an evergreen, radical revisioning of American economic justice in the 1970s, trailblazing a movement that proved that poor mothers are the real experts on poverty, providing job training, libraries, medical access, daycare centers and housing to the poor. Orleck introduces Ruby Duncan, a sharecropper turned White House advisor who led the charge on the long war on poverty waged against the poor Black mothers of Las Vegas. According to Ruby, “Poor women must dream their highest dreams and never stop,” and she, with the help of Mary Wesley and Alversa Beals, did exactly that.

This timely reissue tells the little-known story of a pioneering group of Black mothers who built one of this country’s most successful antipoverty programs.

Free and open to the public. Please RSVP for this event, as we have limited capacity.