grass roots vs folks

grass roots and folks both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
grass roots	Yes	No	No	No
folks	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, folks is a hypernym of grass roots; that is, folks is a word with a broader meaning than grass roots:

grass roots: the common people at a local level (as distinguished from the centers of political activity)
folks: people in general (often used in the plural)

Other hypernyms of grass roots include common people, folk.

grass roots (noun)	folks (noun)
the common people at a local level (as distinguished from the centers of political activity)	your parents
the essential foundation or source	people in general (often used in the plural)