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By Root 960 0

in the scriptures of Trotsky [and] were treated like the students at a Bible School.”51 The various Trotsky groups thought of themselves as martyrs to an overwhelming capitalistic, antisocialist society. The Dollingers, in a way, became the mother and father confessors of the Socialist movement in the United States. But their message increasingly focused on reform within the system rather than overthrowing it through revolution. Genora supported Fidel Castro, joining the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and then, later, Medical Aid for El Salvador. Only much later (1991) did Genora and Sol formally join another political party.

Ideology notwithstanding, the Dollingers found themselves in the company of tens of thousands of other people in the United States who were trying to find and maintain gainful employment. Political, economic, and social philosophies are fine and dandy, but they don’t put food on the table. Throughout the 1950s, after her forays into politics, Genora was usually listed in FBI files and other documents as a housewife. She was blacklisted both in Flint (GM) and in Detroit (Briggs). Furthermore, her name had been given to most other employers in these two cities, so her chance of finding sustained employment was practically nil. This condition deepened her radicalism. She personalized things, and her continued unemployment only encouraged her to blame government officials.

The FBI file reference to her livelihood was misleading. She worked, in fact, as a typist, bookkeeper, and stenographer for AFL-CIO Local 21 in Flint for much of the late 1950s. A board member of this union, Jack Johnson, identified her as a Communist and asserted that he would abstain from future meetings of the union if she remained employed. Such an assertion caught Genora’s attention. She wrote a heated letter to Johnson on April 23, 1958, and recounted her activities in 1937, particularly those having to do with creating the Women’s Emergency Brigade and being shot at and tear gassed. Having done her part for organized labor, she felt she did not have to apologize to the likes of Jack Johnson. She also mentioned her work with the Death Watch at Oak Park and the brutal beatings that both she and Sol had suffered in 1945 at the hands of alleged corporate thugs. As for Genora’s Communist affiliation, she said, “Of course, this is the Pandora’s box of smears, when once opened is supposed to shut off all defense. The only thing wrong with it is that it is common knowledge that I have never been associated with the Communist Party [a statement that raised doubts in many circles]. . . . My political beliefs are a matter of public record. . . . For five years [prior to 1958] I have not belonged to any political party.” She was, however, a member of the ASC, which, by proclamation of its membership, was not considered a political party. She stated in this letter that she was still an “Independent Socialist” without specific political affiliation. She hardly expected, she told Johnson, a union official to use the same blacklisting tactics used by GM and Briggs—she considered it child’s play, in fact. “After all these years of being shot at, clubbed, and beaten for the building of the union movement, you could hardly expect me to maintain silence while these vicious tactics are employed by you.” Brother Johnson had the right to his own opinions, but she questioned his tactics to deprive her of a job, the same prejudices employed so long by the corporations. “I have learned how to fight for principle,” she told Johnson.52 Within the context of her social, economic, religious, and moral definitions, she did just that—fight for principle.

Still another critic, Charles Wilderspin, at a Greater Flint Industrial Union Council meeting on June 31, 1958, repeated Johnson’s charges that Genora was a Communist and that unions should have nothing to do with her. If Genora was angered by Johnson, she was enraged by Wilderspin. “As much as I dislike taking court action against union people,” she told him, “I feel you have left me little alternative this