This Black History Month, Channel 13 is honoring a woman who has long championed the rights of low-income families in Nevada.
From leading marches on the Las Vegas Strip, to starting an innovative nonprofit in the Historic Westside, Ruby Duncan is a changemaker whose legacy has left a lasting impact.
Like many African Americans in the South in the 1950s, Ruby Duncan moved to Las Vegas with the hopes of building a better life.
“I come from the backwoods of Tallulah, Louisiana, out of the cotton fields, straight into Las Vegas,” Duncan said. She said her uncle lived here, and told her it was a place where she could come make decent wages — at least more than the opportunities given to African Americans in the Jim Crow South.
Little did she know then, the bright lights and bustling casinos of Las Vegas Boulevard would soon become a backdrop for a movement that would change the lives of families all over Nevada . It all started one day in 1965, when Duncan was working in the Sahara Resort and Casino as a short order cook.