On Saturday, September 23, The GroFund is collaborating with filmmaker Hazel Gurland-Pooler and Red Owl Partners to host a half-day event of film, storytelling, and conversation uplifting Black women and their lineage of radical leadership. The event is co-sponsored by the Tender Foundation, Black Feminist Futures, Georgia Dusk, and the Center for Civic Innovation Atlanta, Represent GA and WRFG and will take place at 7 Stages Theater from 1-6 pm on Sep 23.
We are screening the PBS documentary film Storming Caesars Palace to share the stories of noted Las Vegas organizer Ruby Duncan and the other “welfare mothers, determined that we fare well” (poet, Aurielle Marie). Along with screening the film, we will use the event as an opportunity to hear from community leaders highlighting lesser-known stories of Atlanta-based Black Women who fought at the intersection of poverty, race, and gender.
About the Film: Storming Caesars Palace uplifts the story of a band of ordinary Black mothers who launched one of the most extraordinary—yet forgotten—feminist, anti-poverty movements in U.S. history, providing a blueprint today for an equitable future.
When Ruby Duncan faces the stigma and harassment of a fraud-obsessed and broken system she ignites “Mother Power,” mobilizing a welfare rights group to march down the Vegas Strip demanding dignity, justice, democratic participation, and an adequate income in 1971. The story of the Mother Power movement reveals the remarkable legacy of Black women coming together to protect their right to survive, thrive, and take care of their families with dignity.
Share Your Story: Black women are a portrait. Every story shared makes the textures more rich, the colors more vibrant, and the lines more pronounced. It is our duty to tell Black women’s stories with the dignity and urgency they deserve. Black women’s stories transform lives. At the event, we will be collaborating with Georgia Dusk to gather brief oral histories of women and generate campaign content that features the faces of ordinary BIPOC women as we also pay homage to Atlanta’s grassroots movement leaders like Ethel Matthews and Bertha Darden.
Learn more at stormingcaesarspalace.com
