Every white man in this country has been raised with a false sense of power.

Dunbar-Ortiz's grandfather was an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World and for the Oklahoma Socialist Party during its brief era of success between the beginning of statehood in 1907 and its repression following the Green Corn Rebellion of 1917. She is presently Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies at California State University Hayward.

She spent most of her youth growing up in the rural community of Piedmont Oklahoma. Outlaw Woman won recognition from the Organization of American Historians as a 2003 finalist for the Liberty Legacy Foundation Award in the field of American civil rights struggles.