[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.
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     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
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