Dismissed from her job as a teacher in 1953 for refusing to cooperate with the State Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities; her then-husband Frank Wilkinson was fired as a director of the Los Angeles City Housing Authority for also refusing to cooperate with the committee. Although both Wilkinsons had been members the Communist Party, they believed that they were targeted because of Frank Wilkinson's efforts to develop a racially integrated public housing project in Chavez Ravine.