Las Vegas Strip, 1970s

1971

Actress Jane Fonda and renowned activists led about 900 people down the Las Vegas Strip on March 6, 1971, a Saturday, in protest of welfare cutbacks.  

“Today we launched a spring offensive and a national campaign against repression,” said participating civil rights leader Rev. Ralph Abernathy (Reno Evening Gazette, March 8, 1971).

Starting at a parking lot behind Circus Circus around 1 p.m., the group, displaying signs with various messages, such as “Nevada Starves Children” and “Don’t Gamble with Human Lives,” slowly meandered the four miles to Caesars Palace.

Once there, they went inside and while waving banners and signs, chanted and sang “We Will Overcome.” They marched through the casino, held a brief rally near the back of the building, during which the resort’s management closed the gaming tables, about 15 to 30 minutes.

The group then returned to the front steps for a sit-in that blocked the front entrance. Guests were re-routed to a separate doorway.

(Fonda left sometime during the march to fly to San Francisco.)

The Precipitating Factor

Earlier that year, Nevada welfare director George Miller removed about 1,128, or 20 percent, of people from the state’s list of welfare recipients because they allegedly had lied about their income when they’d applied for public assistance. Miller’s action affected about 3,000 individuals.

Fonda accused Nevada of forcing women “off welfare rolls to become prostitutes” (Desert Sun, March 6, 1971).

The National Welfare Rights Organization claimed the state had stopped the aid checks without affording the recipients the due process the law guarantees. The group demanded the firing of Miller and reversal of what he’d done. However, Nevada Gov. Mike O’Callahan refused to order either.

Subsequently, NWRO’s executive director George Wiley vowed to protest by disrupting the gambling industry in the city that it dominated, Las Vegas, until Nevada reinstated all dropped welfare recipients. Another aim was to warn other states not to do what The Silver State had done.

A Second Go

On the Saturday following the initial protest, the NWRO and about 250 people again marched, for the same purpose, along the Strip, this time from the Las Vegas Convention Center to the Sands. Moving slowly, the group blocked traffic on South Las Vegas Boulevard and refused to disperse on orders from law enforcement officers.

Consequently, about 85 protesters were arrested. While that was happening, members of the throng shouted, “Arrest George Miller” and other commands and declarations.

When the demonstrators arrived at the hotel-casino, they tried to enter it to disrupt the gambling taking place, but security guards blocked the doors with furniture and their bodies.

“Aren’t we allowed in this hotel like anyone else?” Wiley asked.

Others yelled, “Does the hotel take no responsibility for those children who are starving, for mothers who have to turn to prostitution or to crime? Someone may be burning this hotel down.”

“Then shouts of ‘let’s burn it’ arose from the crowd, which was crushing up against the doors,” noted the Nevada State Journal (March 14, 1971).

Check is in the Mail

Later that month, Federal Judge Roger Foley ruled the State of Nevada, in cutting people off from receiving welfare, had violated their rights. As such, he ordered their names be replaced in the register immediately.

In fact, they were. Soon after, the affected people all got a check in the mail.

Sources

Elliot Paul Price

1970-1973

When federal agents arrested Elliot Paul Price, 51, during a massive multi-city raid in 1970 and charged him with illegally transmitting race wire information across state lines via telephone, two dominos fell:

• He lost his job as a casino host at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

• The Clark County Sheriff’s Office pulled his work card, which is required for casino employment.

In April 1971, however, the sheriff’s department issued him a temporary permit to work in a similar position at Circus Circus. Within the week, though, the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) voted to pull it due to his being under federal indictment and allegedly having an unsavory background. On the NGC’s orders, the sheriff’s office revoked his card, leaving Price again unemployed.

Price Won’t Take No

Unable to obtain a casino job, he filed a lawsuit, but it went nowhere because, according to the judge, he hadn’t pursued all possible avenues for re-obtaining his employment permit.

Price asked the NGC and the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) to reinstate it, but they didn’t. This was because, in a hearing on the issue, he refused to answer questions about his suspected association with underworld individuals. Price hailed from Boston and gambling regulators believed he was entrenched in the Mafia there.

Lawsuit, Take Two

At the start of 1972, with Oscar Goodman as his attorney, Price sued Nevada Governor Mike O’Callaghan and the NGC, claiming the latter had rescinded his work card arbitrarily. The suit purported the agency’s decision hadn’t been based on established guidelines but, rather, on unrelated “charts of the Mafia, ancient newspaper articles, dime store novels, and secret and confidential information” (Nevada State Journal, June 13, 1972). It also asserted the NGCB hearings had violated his freedom of association right and forced him to be a witness against himself.

Goodman requested the withdrawal of Price’s work card be deemed unconstitutional and a temporary restraining order (TRO) be placed against the gambling regulating agencies, preventing them from interfering with his obtaining a new one.

The state, on the other hand, argued that were the court to afford the TRO until the issue got resolved legally, it would be substituting its judgment for that of Nevada in a state administrative matter. Also, were Price to prevail, it “could well emasculate the total regulatory concept of gaming” (Reno Evening Gazette, June 13, 1972).

District Court Judge Howard Babcock granted Price the TRO.

Nevada Fights Back

The NGCB responded with a suit of its own to overturn Babcock’s action on the grounds that the local court lacked jurisdiction in the matter. The NGC and NGCB conceded Price could work in a non-casino job at Las Vegas’ Riviera hotel.

District Court Judge Carl Christensen denied the State of Nevada’s motion to dissolve the TRO. This meant Price could return to his casino host post at Circus Circus until the high court weighed in.

Off To Higher Court Land

Next, Goodman took the case to the Nevada Supreme Court, asking it to allow Price to regain his work card, thereby protecting his constitutional right to due process.

Deputy Attorney General David Polley, for the state, argued that upholding Babcock’s ruling would “set a dangerous precedent which would be detrimental to the inhabitants of Nevada and their major industry” (Nevada State Journal, June 13, 1972).

Resolution Three Years Later

In 1973 the Nevada Supreme Court delivered the opinion that, yes, the lower, or district, court had jurisdiction to rule upon the validity of Price’s right to work in gaming.

In other words, Goodman and Price* won the legal fight. Their doing so established that Nevada couldn’t deprive someone of their work card without due process. Subsequently, Clark County instituted processes for suspending or revoking a work identification card and for an appeal by the card holder.

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* In 1979, Price would be indicted for multistate race fixing along with other members of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang, James “Whitey” Bulger’s associates, for which he would serve two months. Subsequently, he would disappear, never to be heard from again.

Sources