California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party

Dorothy Ray Healey joined the Communist party at age fourteen, in 1928, and was leader of the Los Angeles district–the second largest in the country–for over twenty years. As a strike leader, opponent of McCarthyism, Vietnam war protestor, candidate for public office, and mentor to Angela Davis, she won fame as “a tough lady red,” one of the few women to rise to Communist party leadership.