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By Root 920 0

Flint and, because of so much press coverage and photos, was known throughout the state and many industrial parts of the country. As her notoriety increased, she was to pay time and again for her fame. First was an estrangement from her father. She may have loved Raymond, but she did not like him. He was abusive to her mother, Lora, macho toward his son Jarvis, and bigoted against blacks. Then, to beat it all, when his daughter became a “Bolshevik,” as he put it, and not only joined the sit-downers but formed the EB as well, it was just too much. Genora came from a fairly well-to-do family, and here she was cavorting with the Socialists, either on the picket lines (frequently with her two sons, although Genora’s mother and two sisters, Barbara and Beatrice, took care of them most of the time) or leading large groups of shouting women down the streets of Flint.2 From Ray’s capitalistic point of view, his daughter had become wayward, and over time he tried many tactics to get her back on the straight and narrow.

In all likelihood with Lora’s prodding, he rented the top apartment of his house on Garland Street to Genora and Kermit, and before long a sizeable portion of the Flint community stuck their noses into his business and asked why he allowed his “Communist” daughter to continue living at his house. The banks put the squeeze on him in 1937 for numerous unpaid debts. One bank official told him, “As long as [Genora] is living there we’re going to cut off the water, your loans, and your money.” Ray told Genora and Kermit to vacate the premises. She angrily refused. “I’m not moving and if you try and evict us I’ll have a big announcement to the press that this is the way you treat your daughter.”3 She also threatened to call the city health department and “expose him to the public for mal-treatment of his own children.” Raymond Albro could only shrug his shoulders and shake his head over his rebellious daughter. His capitalistic mind simply could not understand her. When one of her kinsmen, Charles Wetherald, a Flint vice president of GM, offered her a job (or bribe, as Genora interpreted it) with a respectable salary, she would not accept it.4 It was both bull-headedness and deep conviction that caused her to stand so faithfully with the Socialist and union causes. The “bribe” that hurt the most, however, was from within the union itself. Much factionalism existed in unions and between the Socialists and Communists. Genora came to believe that Dorothy Kraus, whose husband, Henry, later wrote a seminal study of the sit-downs, The Many and the Few: A Chronicle of the Dynamic Auto Workers, tried to push her out of the Women’s Auxiliary and hand it over to the Communist Party. According to Genora, she was “taken aside” by Dorothy and told that she (Genora) should not be out in such inclement weather, especially since she had received weekly treatments for tuberculosis, requiring the ejection of air from one of her lungs to keep it collapsed. Genora wore a pair of high-heeled shoes with holes in them; in fact, she put playing cards in the soles for some sort of dryness and warmth. If Genora would just be “reasonable,” that is, not object to Dorothy’s ascension to power as head of the EB, Genora could have warm shoes and coats and even gloves. It did not take long for the fiery Genora Albro Johnson to tell Mrs. Kraus what she could do, and where she could go. By a vote, the EB ousted Dorothy, effectively keeping it within the realm of the Socialist Party instead of using it as a Communist front, as Dorothy and Henry desired.5

During the forty-four day sit-down strike, Genora and the Socialists in Flint got full press. The new role of women in the industrial world received coverage all over the world, generally with Genora Johnson headlined more than anyone else. Heady stuff, this, for a woman still in her twenties. The Socialists in Flint, wanting to take advantage of the enormous publicity they and the EB had gained, asked Genora to go on a speaking tour of several East Coast cities; the tour included the May Day (1937) parades