Child of the Sit-Downs_ The Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger - Carlton Jackson [25]
Remember, when we go into a situation and if the police come out . . . and start shooting or throwing tear gas or clubbing, you stand at your post of duty. You do not move, and if your sister beside you goes down in a pool of blood, you do not get hysterical. You cannot join the Women’s Emergency Brigade if you are going to lose your head and get hysterical. Do not sign up in the Women’s Emergency Brigade, take your role in the strike kitchen, take your role in the first aid station.47
She also kept reminding would-be members of the EB that in the Battle of Bull’s Run sixteen workers and eleven police had been injured.48 Membership in the EB was not child’s play.
Genora’s speech was the first time the press started taking her seriously. One headline spoke of housewives going into battle with their brooms and mops. Even that was not accurate: they would more likely carry baseball bats than cleaning implements. Or, if not bats, clubs and blackjacks braided with upholstery leather, with wristlets to keep them in place. Some women carried soap bars wrapped in socks and sometimes filled with nuts and bolts. The picket signs they used were deliberately nailed onto two-by-fours that, if necessary, could be used as weapons.49 “Whenever you saw one of those women,” Genora proclaimed, “you knew she was ready for action . . . morning, night, or any time.”50
The qualifications Genora outlined for membership in the EB “could easily have curdled the blood of most men.” The pledge to the EB required women to “be prepared to stand in front of the men if shooting broke out.” The severity of the pledge was designed to discourage all “but the bravest and boldest” of women. “This was War,” Genora pronounced, “and we meant business! We weren’t fooling around!” Auxiliary and EB members made at least ten times the sacrifices of men to participate in the strike. A woman had to take care of groceries, cooking, and laundering; find a babysitter; and see the kids off to school in addition to strike work. Some mothers brought their children to the Pengelly Building, where they were looked after by Wilma McCartney, a mother of eight who, at the time, was seven months pregnant.51
In addition to the child care center in the Pengelly Building, the EB also started a speaker’s bureau and conducted short, intensive classes in labor history—particularly about women’s roles—for whomever wished to attend. They dispatched “flying squads” to aid and comfort the unionists in nearby towns also affected by labor strife, inspiring the coining of the phrase “Flint is Coming.”52 A first-aid center was established, with trained nurse Bertha Simmons in charge, accompanied by a midwife and several assistants.53 They conducted raffles to raise funds and even organized a couple of Saturday night dances! These activities were in addition to their main tasks of running picket lines and helping the men gain footholds in the continuing troubles. “Events moved so quickly,” Genora later asserted, “and yet we did all this without any outside help—completely autonomous and independent of the male leadership!”54
Again, a strange coalescence of company and union ensued: the women of Flint who just a month or so ago were pictures of domesticity now came out in militant force. “We women don’t want violence,” Genora claimed. “We don’t want trouble but we are going to protect our husbands.”55 Their motto was “Always ready for emergencies!”56
Genora told a Detroit paper, “I realized during that trouble women could and should play a prominent part in any future emergency. The idea of the women’s battalion was born then. We will be ready in the