Jean Wilkinson dies at 96; one of the first Los Angeles teachers to be fired during Red Scare

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-jean-wilkinson-20110106,0,3049217.story

During the McCarthy era, Jean Wilkinson refused to cooperate when questioned by the California Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities. She was blacklisted for 12 years.

By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times

January 6, 2011

Jean Benson Wilkinson, who became one of the first Los Angeles public school teachers to be fired for refusing to cooperate with McCarthy-era investigators, died Dec. 28 in Berkeley. She was 96.
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FOR THE RECORD:
Jean Wilkinson: In the Jan. 6 LATExtra section, the obituary of Jean Benson Wilkinson, a Los Angeles teacher who was fired during the Red Scare, cited a 1954 editorial by William Randolph Hearst. The year was correct but not the author; Hearst died in 1951. The editorial was unsigned and ran in the Los Angeles Herald Express, a Hearst newspaper.

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Wilkinson died of natural causes a month after surgery for a broken femur, her daughter, Jo, said.

During the Red Scare of the early 1950s, Wilkinson was teaching at the East Los Angeles Girls Vocational School when she was called before the State Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities about possible connections to the Communist Party. She declined to answer the committee's questions and in 1953 was fired by the Los Angeles Board of Education, along with five other teachers.


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Best we don't forget heroes like this. I don't know how many strong intelligent people like this woman we have left in this country? Too few I am afraid. Rest in peace Mrs. Wilkinson.

Don

R-I-P Ms. Wilkinson