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By Root 889 0

Genora and Kermit, with a specially created unit of Local Twelve came right behind them and returned the furniture to the houses. This ploy could not work long, so the local unionists erected large army tents in Oak Park on Industrial Avenue, just across the street from the WPA office itself. Genora and her allies moved all the dislocated people to this place, an action that attracted the attention of city government as well as that of the press. One local newspaper ran a story about a “leading Communist” in Flint bragging of being in a position to poison the city’s water supplies. The leading Communist was identified as Genora Johnson. Genora denied the statement, saying that she was not and had never been a member of the Communist Party. She also denied ever having tried to contaminate any water system, in Flint or elsewhere. Genora and Kermit posted signs on each corner of Oak Park, “inviting the public to come out to see poor people with hungry, starving children—to watch people die.” They ran taps into the street wires to get electricity and used hot plates to prepare food. The people within this encampment were forced to live their private lives in public. Women washed clothes in huge tubs and hung them out on tree branches. For warmth against the cold February nights, little children huddled around fires in huge oil drums. Altogether it was not a pretty sight: some two or three hundred people living in the open in the middle of winter right in the heart of industrial America. One of Genora’s signs read, “This is the Death Watch.” Another proclaimed, “If you want to see people in the city of Flint die, here they are.”21 Yet another announced, “If Flint workers must starve to death, let them do it publicly.”22 These ploys attracted much attention, as cars full of curiosity seekers drove slowly by every day and into the night.

City officials quickly reminded everyone in the camp that they were breaking the law. Oak Park was public and not for the benefit of a “select few.” Welfare officials threatened to take, forcibly if necessary, all the children from their mothers and put them into juvenile detention centers. The police (who remembered Genora all too well), on orders from city hall, threatened the group with jail. Union people began to stand guard on the periphery of the park. A nearby Buick plant was full of UAW members, and their leader, Pat Murray, swore that “if any cops come up anywhere within the district, we’re going to come out with our pipes and our hammers and our wrenches and we’ll take care of them.” Such threats actually helped to keep the peace. As an indication that demonstrations, even those that threaten violence, are effective ways to show disaffection, the “Death Watch” ultimately got what it wanted. The spectacle grew increasingly embarrassing to the city of Flint, especially as lawmakers in Lansing and Washington, D.C., asked what was happening. Finally, under the auspices of the WPA in Washington, federal officials came to the camp, sat down, and talked with the women about their needs. Afterward, they walked across the street to the welfare office and ordered that these mothers and children be given everything they wanted. Large shipments of surplus food arrived, and, for the first time in many weeks, these displaced citizens filled their stomachs.23 Genora and Kermit had put three or four families in each tent to symbolize and dramatize the plight of the laid-off workers. Laborers, along with all other groups in society, have rights to dignity and security. She discovered that many of these individuals allowed themselves to be downtrodden because they did not know they had rights in the first place. Genora set out to teach them differently. She inspired the out-of-work men and their wives and children to take on the establishment and win the rights and privileges to which they were entitled. If such actions meant creating a “sensational nuisance,” as some observers dubbed the encampment, then so be it. Kermit and Genora were not beyond a bit of proselytizing for the cause of Socialism during