[14] Genora (Johnson) Dollinger (April 20, 1913 - October 11, 1995) [Editor's note: Early issues of the Amateur Computerist described the tradition of the Flint Sit-Down Strike and the effort to build a democratic UAW with uncensored local newspapers. Several of our early issues included contributions from some of the pioneer sitdowners who were then alive. Sadly, one more of these important fighters, Genora (Johnson) Dollinger, died in Fall 1995.] Genora Johnson's name is well known to anyone familiar with the details of the Great Flint Sit-Down Strike in 1936-37 waged by autoworkers against the giant General Motors Corporation. That strike won autoworkers their first instances of union representation by unions of their own choice and lead to the unionization of many industrial workers in the USA. In particular, Genora rallied the women in Flint to support and participate in sitdown strike battles and events. She organized a child's picket line which drew world wide attention to the strike. Genora helped initiate and organize the Women's Auxiliary and the Women's Emergency Brigade (the Red Berets). In every important battle of the 44-day strike, Genora played a crucial role. When the sitdown strike began, Genora joined the supporting picket line and was available at the strike headquarters. She refused to be relegated to the kitchen even though she felt there was important work to be done there too. When many women were confused by the strike and upset by the loss of their husbands' time and income, Genora and other active women took up to explain the importance of the strike to these women. Out of this debate among women of different points of view emerged the Women's Auxiliary which set up a daycare center, a first aid station, food gathering, home visits, and public speaking classes. The Women's Auxiliary made many important contributions to final victory of the strike. Because of the violence perpetrated by the General Motors initiated back-to-work forces like the Flint Alliance, Genora lead the effort that resulted in the formation of the Women's Emergency Brigade. Genora organized the Red Berets, as they were called, on a military basis. The women of the brigade trained themselves to carry and wield heavy clubs. They used the clubs to break windows in Chevy Plant 9 when tear gas was used against workers in that plant. Those workers were setting up a diversion so Chevy Plant 4 could be successfully occupied by sitdowners. Genora and the Red Beret lieutenants also played a crucial role preventing the first police on the scene at Plant 4 from challenging the securing of Plant 4 by the strikers. Genora and her lieutenants argued with the Flint Police long enough for the rest of the Emergency Brigade to arrive and to setup a strong picket line. By then the plant was firmly in union hands. Kermit Johnson, Genora's husband at the time, was the Flint rank and file leader of the strike. He devised the diversionary plan that lead to the successful capture of Plant 4. Plant 4 manufactured the engines for all the Chevrolet brand automobiles that GM was still making in plants outside of Flint. Genora remembers being instrumental in getting Kermit's plan adopted. The successful occupation of Plant 4 broke the resistence of General Motors. Negotiations followed shortly in Detroit. Despite ten more days of tactics by GM to break the strike, by February 11, 1937 a one page contract was signed. The workers and their families had won an historic victory. After the sitdown strike, General Motors continued its fight to reverse the workers' victory. Genora was black-listed and couldn't work anywhere in Flint. Her marriage to Kermit also ended. She moved to Detroit where she was active in UAW locals especially Local 212 at Briggs Manufacturing. To get a job she had to use her second husband Sol Dollinger's name. For her activity at Briggs she was beaten in her sleep by two thugs. There is evidence that her beating was part of a string of such attacks instigated by Detroit corporate officials in collusion with others.* Genora recovered from her beating and continued her organizing within the UAW and also in a variety of other ways. She ran for the United States Senate in 1948 as a candidate for the Socialist Workers Party. During the Viet Nam War Genora was an early president of the Women for Peace anti-war organization. She argued vigorously and successfully to win the Detroit area union leaders into public opposition to the war. As the years went by, Genora kept contact with her fellow and sister sitdown pioneers. Annually during the 1980s, around February 11 there was a memorial issue of The Searchlight (newspaper of UAW Local 659) commemorating the victory of the Great Sit-Down Strike. A contribution from Genora appeared in these anniversary issues of The Searchlight. About ten years ago she returned to Flint to attend a commemorative picnic. There she criticized Henry Kraus whose book about the sitdown had mis-portrayed the leadership role of the rank and file in the sitdown. In front of the assembled surviving sitdown pioneers Genora critiqued Kraus's account and demanded that he write an accurate account. And, as the older sitdowners died in recent years, Genora often sent a message of remembrance to be published in The Searchlight of the role they played in the strike and through the years. Even in her eighties, Genora tried to remain active, for example working toward the formation of a labor party in California. But her health was failing. On October 11, 1995 she died at the age of 82. As her friend Floyd Hoke-Miller might have said, another warrior in the cause of working people was now gone to get some rest. Genora's long years of hard struggle and sacrifice are an inspiration for those trying to keep up the fight for human progress. *See e.g., the recent booklet, Striking Flint: Genora (Johnson) Dollinger Remembers the 1936-37 General Motors Sit-Down Strike, as told to Susan Rosenthal, L.J. Page Publications, Chicago, Il, May, 1996. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 7 no 2 Winter 1997 available free via email from jrh@umcc.umich.edu and http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~jrh/acn -----------------------------------------------------------------------