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1930s. Miller invited Emil Mazey to the podium. The highlight of Mazey’s speech, picked up by the national press, was, “I don’t like my President lying to me,”18 a reference to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had won in 1964 on a nonescalation platform. According to Sol Dollinger, President Johnson got wind of this statement and contacted Walter Reuther, head of the international UAW, telling him that “you better get your guy [Mazey] under control.”19 Reuther called a meeting of the UAW executive board and pushed through a motion that “effectively silenced board members [including Mazey] from speaking out publicly against the war.”20 The Dollingers had not particularly respected Walter Reuther since the sit-downs of 1937, quarrels over sliding wage scales, and other matters, but this turn of events solidified their antagonisms. “Of all the treacherous acts of Reuther,” Sol maintained, “this has to be put at the head of the list.” This was “democracy” Walter Reuther style.21 Genora thought it was Reuther’s hobnobbing with U.S. presidents that caused his union militancy to be compromised. His visits with presidents “changed this man completely. Completely. Then he wanted to control.” He began to develop as a bureaucrat instead of a labor leader because of “the pressure of capitalist society.”22 Reuther’s direction here, Genora believed, led later to what she called tuxedo unionism, a condition in which labor and capital became cooperative rather than confrontational.

Genora put her heart and soul into reform work, fighting for social justice wherever she saw the need for it. In the mid-1960s, one of her admirers, David Herreshoff, summed up her value: “Her name reminds me of an essential part of every vehicle which rolls from Flint. . . . Just so Genora crackles and sparkles through human vehicles. . . . She is what [Walt] Whitman means by the ‘body electric.’ No room she is in is inadequately lit. No cause she is in is hopeless.”23 All the while she fought for the causes she believed in, health problems continued to plague her. She developed chronic arthritis, aggravated by Detroit winters. On a blustery winter day in 1966, Sol telephoned Genora at her ACLU office and told her there was a chance of a transfer within his company to Los Angeles. The union representing workers for Israel Bonds required that job openings always be posted. Sol considered himself a good salesman, though he had not been successful when trying to peddle Encyclopedia Britannica, so he felt his chances of getting the Los Angeles appointment to be good.24 Would Genora be interested in Los Angeles? Sol wanted to know. Yes, she quickly replied. A change in geography and climate might have an ameliorating effect on her arthritis. With all the things happening in California at that time, it might be a mecca for Genora’s talents. The antiwar campaigns and growing interest in women’s rights, racial justice, educational reforms, and environmental issues seemed tailor-made for Genora. Besides, at the time she thought it was closer to Mexico than was Michigan (paradoxically, Detroit and Los Angeles are almost equidistant from Mexico City).

Again, there was to be another move. When Genora figured up how many times she had moved, it was unsettling. Flint to Detroit and back to Flint and then back to Detroit—how many times? But, all things considered for the Dollingers in the mid-1960s, California was the place to be. Once again Sol went ahead of Genora and Ronnie. She had to wait until Ronnie’s school year ended to sell their Detroit house and allow Sol time to find a suitable residence for them. She signed her letters to him “Shalom Alacheim!”25

She wrote to Helen Travis (wife of Robert Travis, an early UAW leader), “Have you heard? We’re moving to L.A.” She would not miss Detroit as a city, “but it is hard, after all those years in Michigan, leaving the wealth of friends I have accumulated. The farewells are hard.” She expected, she told Helen, to get work as soon as she arrived in the western city. She was proud that the Michigan ACLU beat southern California