"El Cortez Hotel and Casino is the longest continuously running hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Opened in 1941, it was so successful that it attracted the attention of Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, Gus Greenbaum, and Moe Sedway, all whom purchased it in 1945.

In 1963 El Cortez was purchased by Jackie Gaughan, and it has been run as a family business ever since, even through its sale to Ike Gaming in 2008.

Mercedes Maharis is the former director of Nevada CURE and co-author of the Spartacus Project Report. She began teaching meditation in the Nevada state prison system in 1997. This led to Maharis advocating for inmates’ rights and the beginnings of the Nevada chapter of CURE. They presented the Spartacus Project Report to state leaders and at the December 5, 2000 Board of Prison Commissioners meeting. She co-authored the Spartacus Project Report along with Donald Hinton, Sr., a prisoner advocate whose son was incarcerated at the Indian Springs prison.

Don Cunningham, Jazz musician and Las Vegas resident was born in 1931 in St. Louis, Missouri. As a child he was heavily influenced by blues and jazz musicians such as BB King, Count Basie, and Ella Fitzgerald. Growing up in St. Louis Cunningham worked shining shoes and cleaning steps going to white neighborhoods working inside taverns. He received saxophone lessons from a family friend and joined the band attending a segregated high school.