Free Republic

Dorothy Ray Healey, 91, a former longtime leader in the American Communist Party who moved to Washington in 1983 to help raise her grandchildren and who hosted a weekly radio show on WPFW (89.3 FM), died of respiratory failure and pneumonia Aug. 6 at the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington in Rockville. Mrs. Healey, once known as "the Red Queen," embraced the Communist Party in Los Angeles at 14 and rose through the ranks, becoming chairwoman of the Communist Party USA in Southern California. A labor organizer, civil rights activist and radio commentator, she remained a party faithful until 1973,...

Dorothy Healey, a onetime labor organizer, civil rights activist and Marxist radio commentator who was chairwoman of the Southern California district of the Communist Party USA from the late 1940s through the 1960s, has died. She was 91. Healey, dubbed "the Red Queen of Los Angeles" by headline writers during her heyday, died Sunday of pneumonia in the Greater Washington Hebrew Home, said her son, Richard. She had been a resident of Washington, D.C., since 1983. The diminutive Healey, who stood just under 5 feet tall and once wore a pendant that pictured a clenched fist raised as a symbol...