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for the cause of Socialism. Blacklisted because of her activities against GM during the sit-down strike, she moved to Detroit where she hoped her name would not be as recognizable as in Flint. She was hired by several plants, but her past kept catching up with her. She did become, however, a chief steward and was fired three times. She continued to wrestle with the problem of the no-strike pledge of unions with the windfall profits that corporations seemed to be making during World War II. This chapter includes Genora’s work on the Investigative Committee that looked into violence against union workers. Her labors here almost got her killed. She and Sol were viciously attacked on October 15, 1945, by two men. Genora spent several weeks in the hospital, where physicians worried that she would never recover her motor abilities. And then her youngest son, Jody, was killed, adding to the string of tragedies Genora suffered in the immediate postwar period. As the century reached its midpoint in 1950, Genora bounced back and looked forward to a new decade that could very well be dedicated to the new woman.

Chapter 5 discusses Genora’s political bids, first as a U.S. senatorial candidate and then as a representative from Michigan’s Sixth District. She barely registered any votes in either election. When she realized that she was not going to represent Michigan in any capacity in the U.S. Congress, she threw herself wholeheartedly into Socialist activities in Flint and elsewhere. During this time she had to contend with the death of Ray, her father: the love and affection that had been missing for her father in life came full force with his death. And then she had to deal with the death of her oldest son, Denny, from multiple sclerosis. Genora kept up a front here; the audiences who heard one fiery speech after another had no idea what kind of personal agony she was suffering.

By the mid-1950s she had attracted the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). As it turned out, this governmental agency kept a watch—a very close watch—on both Genora and Sol Dollinger. Some of the things they had been saying during this time were not compatible with what the FBI thought was in the best interests of the country. Chapter 5 includes the ideological quarrels that began in the SWP between the Stalinists and the Trotskyists; the end result was the retirement of Sol and Genora Dollinger from the SWP to the Socialist Union of America (SUA), where they stayed for only a few years. The chapter ends with the opportunity for the Dollinger family to move to the Golden State, an offer they readily accepted.

Chapter 6 picks up Genora’s activities in her new home state of California. Though she was no longer directly connected to reform movements in Michigan, in the NAACP, the ACLU, and as columnist for several union magazines she continued to find causes in California to champion. She was still in demand around the country for speeches; some labor leaders called her the grande dame of the union movement. Though at first it excluded blacks, Genora joined the National Organization of Women (NOW), apparently believing that she and like-minded middle-class individuals could positively change this situation by being inside the organization rather than outside it. Genora and Sol, along with their son, Ronald, continued to visit Mexico while the family lived in California, and, as had been the case for the past several years, their travels were closely scrutinized by the FBI, who had hopes of catching them in some sort of subversive activity.

“It Makes My Heart Sing,” the title of chapter 7, derives from the fact that after so many years of talking, grumbling, and even shouting about the virtues of Socialism, several people and organizations now began listening to her. She addressed the annual meeting in Los Angeles of the Organization of American Historians and got a standing ovation from this learned group. Her speech was titled “What Is Radical History?” Because she believed that Los Angeles schools were deteriorating both educationally