Genora dollinger biography
- Born in Kalamazoo, Genora Johnson Dollinger was raised and lived most of her life in Flint, where her family had been early settlers of that city.
- Genora was born in April of 1913 and came from an upper-middle-class old Flint background.
- Genora Johnson was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but the family residence was in Flint.
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“This Is the Pressure That They Used”: Genora Dollinger Recalls the Flint Sit-Down Strike
by Genora Johnson Dollinger/Sherna Gluck
Strikes affect an entire community, and in the end they need that community’s support to succeed. This is especially true in the case of a sit-down strike like the legendary sit-down strike at Flint, Michigan, in 1936, when the strikers occupied the GM plants. The strikers, isolated at first inside the Fisher Body Plant Number One, needed food; they also needed information and advance warning on what management might be up to. The Women’s Emergency Brigade, formed during the Flint strike, proved indispensable to the union effort more than once. Genora Johnson Dollinger helped found the Women’s Emergency Brigade and became one of the strike’s key leaders. In this interview, conducted by historian Sherna Gluck in 1976, Genora Johnson Dollinger described first how the strike affected her family.
Listen to Audio:Genora Dollinger: During this period, I was renting an apartment above my mother, on the third f
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Genora (Johnson) Dollinger Remembers the 1936-37 General Motors Sit-Down Strike
... as told to Susan Rosenthal
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Conditions Before the Strike
Preparing for Battle
Sit Down!
Women Come Forward
The Women's Emergency Brigade
Breaking the Stalemate
A Blow Against Racism
The Sweet Fruit of Victory
Fighting Racism
Organizing the Unemployed
Personally Speaking
Class Struggle During the War
The Employers Strike Back
Back to the Future
Preface
There are times in history when the forces of capital and labor are so evenly matched in combat that the actions of a few brave individuals can tip the balance in favor of their class. Genora (Johnson) Dollinger was one of those courageous and clear-sighted people. Her greatness lay in her determination to press forward to win a decisive victory for labor and her deep conviction that such a victory could only be won by the workers themselves.
The struggle to organize the growing American automobile industry began with a strike at a Studebaker plant in 1913. In 1930, workers at Fisher Bod
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The Unrelenting Genora Dollinger
— Sol Dollinger
GENORA JOHNSON DOLLINGER was called the Joan of Arc of labor for her role in the Flint sitdown strikes of 1937. At the age of 23 she organized the Women’s Auxiliary of the United Automobile Workers Union and the women’s Emergency Brigade. The latter were armed with clubs in defense of the sitdowners from the hired Pinkerton strikebreakers, the plant police of General Motors and the Flint City Police dominated by the corporation. Her militant actions were the subject of two award-winning documentaries: "The Great Sitdown Strike," made by BBC, and the Academy Award nominated documentary, "Babies and Banners."
Genora was born April 20, 1913 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where her mother took her to give birth, but the family residence was in Flint. In 1931 she became a charter member of the newly organized Flint Socialist Party, which was later to play a pre-eminent role in the leadership of the sitdown strikes.
Her first husband, Kermit Johnson was the only member of the 1937 city-wide strike committee working in the h
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