- Anne Braden
Infobox revolution biography
name = Anne McCarty Braden
lived =July 28 ,1924 -March 6 ,2006
dateofbirth = birth date|1924|7|28
placeofbirth =Louisville, Kentucky , USA
dateofdeath = death date and age|2006|3|6|1924|7|24
placeofdeath =Louisville, Kentucky , USA
spouse = Carl Braden
children =
movement = African-American Civil Rights Movement andPeace Movement
organizations =
Political Affiliation =Progressive Party
monuments =
prizes =American Civil Liberties Union s Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty
religion =
influences =
influenced =
footnotes =Anne McCarty Braden (
July 28 ,1924 –March 6 ,2006 ) was an American advocate of racial equality. Born inLouisville, Kentucky , and raised in rigidly segregatedAnniston, Alabama , Braden grew up in a middle-class family that accepted southern racial mores wholeheartedly. [http://www.veteransofhope.org/bio.php?vid=34&p=bio Ann Braden Biography] ] A devout Episcopalian, Braden was bothered byracial segregation , but never questioned it until her college years atRandolph-Macon Woman’s College inVirginia . After working on newspapers in Anniston andBirmingham , she returned to Kentucky as a young adult to write for theLouisville Times . There, she met and in 1948 married fellow newspaperman Carl Braden, a left-wing trade unionist. She became a supporter of thecivil rights movement at a time when it was unpopular among southern whites.Early activism
In 1948, Anne and Carl Braden immersed themselves in
Henry Wallace 's run on theProgressive Party for the presidency. Soon after Wallace’s defeat, they left mainstreamjournalism to apply their writing talents to the interracial left wing of the labor movement through theFE (Farm and Equipment Workers) Union , representing Louisville’s International Harvester employees.Fosl, Catherine (2002). "Subversive Southerner" (1st ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-29487-5.]Even as the postwar
labor movement splintered and grew less militant,civil rights causes heated up. In 1950, Anne Braden spearheaded a hospital desegregation drive in Kentucky. She endured her first arrest in 1951 when she led a delegation of southern white women organized by theCivil Rights Congress toMississippi to protest the execution of Willie McGee, an African American man convicted of the rape of a white woman.The Wade case
In 1954, the Wades, an
African American family who knew the Bradens through association, approached them with a proposal that would drastically alter all lives involved. Like so many other Americans afterWorld War II , Andrew Wade wanted to buy a house in a suburban neighborhood. Because ofJim Crow housing practices, the Wades had been unsuccessful for months in their quest to purchase a home on their own. The Bradens, who never wavered in their support for African American civil rights, agreed to purchase the home for the Wades. OnMay 15 ,1954 Andrew Wade and his wife Charlotte spent their first night in their new home in the Louisville suburb ofShively, Kentucky . Upon discovering that blacks had moved in, white neighbors burned a cross in front of the house, shot out windows, and condemned the Bradens for buying it on the Wades’ behalf. Their fears may have been stoked in part by the timing of the move which came only two days before theU.S. Supreme Court ’s landmark condemnation of school segregation inBrown v. Board of Education ,Topeka, KS . Six weeks later, amid constant community tensions, the Wades’ new house was dynamited one evening while they were out. While Vernon Bown (an associate of the Wades and the Bradens) was indicted for the bombing, the actual bombers were never sought nor brought to trial.McCarthyism affected the ordeal. The investigation turned from segregationist violence to the allegedCommunist Party affiliations of some of those who had supported the Wades in their housing quest. Segregationists charged that these Communists had engineered the bombing to provide a cause celebre and fund-raising opportunity, but this was never proven. Nonetheless, on October 1954, Anne and Carl Braden and five other whites were charged withsedition . After a sensationalized trial, Carl Braden—the perceived ringleader—was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. As Anne and the other defendants awaited a similar fate, Carl served eight months, but out on $40,000 bond when a U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidated state sedition laws because of their capricious use. All charges were droppedand the Wades moved back to Louisville.Later activism
Blacklisted from local employment, the Bradens took jobs as field organizers for the
Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), a small, New Orleans-based civil rights organization whose mission was to solicit white southern support for the beleaguered southern civil rights movement. In the years before southern civil rights violations made national news, the Bradens developed their own media. Both through SCEF’s monthly newspaper, "The Southern Patriot ", and through numerous pamphlets and press releases publicizing major civil rights campaigns. In 1958 Anne wrote "The Wall Between", a memoir of their sedition case.Braden, Anne (1958). "The Wall Between" (2nd ed.). University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 1-57233-061-9.] One of the few books of its time to unpack the psychology of white southern racism from within, it was praised by human rights leaders such as Martin Luther King jr. andEleanor Roosevelt , and became a runner-up for theNational Book Award . Although their radical politics marginalized them among many of their own generation, the Bradens were reclaimed by young student activists of the 1960s. They were among the civil rights movement’s most dedicated white allies.The Bradens also had three children: James, born in 1951, a 1972
Rhodes Scholar , and a 1980 graduate ofHarvard Law School (where he precededBarack Obama as editor of the Harvard Law Review), has lived and practiced law for over 25 years inSan Francisco, California . Elizabeth, born in 1960, has worked as a teacher in many countries around the world, serving as of 2006 in that capacity in ruralEthiopia . Anita, born in 1953, died of apulmonary disorder at age 11. While raising their children, the couple remained deeply involved in the civil rights cause and the subsequentsocial movements it prompted in the 1960s-70s.After Carl’s death in 1975, Anne Braden remained among the nation’s most outspoken white anti-racist activists. She instigated the formation of a new regional multi-racial organization, the
Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice (SOC), which initiated battles againstenvironmental racism . She became an instrumental voice in theRainbow/PUSH Coalition of the 1980s and in the twoJesse Jackson presidential campaigns, as well as organizing across racial divides in the new environmental, women’s, andanti-nuclear movement s that sprang up in that decade.No longer a pariah, Anne received the
American Civil Liberties Union ’s firstRoger Baldwin Medal of Liberty in 1990 for her contributions to civil liberties. As she aged, her activism focused more on Louisville, where she remained a leader in anti-racist drives and taught social justice history classes at local universities. Anne Braden died onMarch 6 ,2006 . [ [http://www.ket.org/civilrights/bio_braden.htm KET.org Ann Braden Bio] ] Over her nearly six decades of activism, her life touched almost every modern U.S. social movement, and her message to them all was the centrality of racism and the responsibility of whites to combat it.Popular culture
The indie/
hip hop groupFlobots paid tribute with the song "Anne Braden" on their 2008 album "Fight With Tools ". The track includes several audio samples of Anne Braden, describing her life and thoughts on race in her own words.ee also
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History of Louisville, Kentucky
*List of famous Louisvillians References
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