Like many of the antiracists profiled on this website, Anne Braden always “favored the more radical course of action on the question of segregation. She simply could not see the argument of being prudent and going slowly” (Brown, 2002, p.89).

In 1954, when Anne was thirty years old, she and her husband Carl bought a home “in suburban Louisville in order to deed it over to [the Wades] an African-American couple. For this, the Bradens were charged with sedition against the state of Kentucky” (Brown, 2002, p.78-79). The Wades' house was bombed and the Bradens' house was also threatened. As a result of the stress of guarding her house, Anne had a miscarriage of her third child. The Bradens were thrown in jail on the sedition charge, and while in jail their personal library was raided by the prosecution (Brown, 2002). During the seven months Carl spent in prison, Anne was fundraising and organizing his appeal. Fourteen months after Carl was released, the prosecution dropped its charges “on the basis of a Supreme Court ruling in a Pennsylvania case against state sedition laws” (Brown, 2002, p.95).

In 1957, the Bradens accepted jobs as field secretaries with the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF). SCEF has been described as an “interracial, reform” organization “working within the U.S. system for peaceful social change” with the aim of “ending segregation in the South immediately through Negro and white people working together” (Brown, 2002, p.97).

As a result of her involvement in SCEF, Anne received a subpoena to appear before HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee); she refused to appear unless the “committee paid to fly her children to Atlanta with her." The federal marshals excused her (Brown, 2002, p.98). Carl, however, was sentenced to a year in jail. In 1964, Anne Braden wrote a 45-page pamphlet called "House Un-American Activities Committee: Bulwark of Segregation” on the labeling of civil rights activists as Communists. Braden believed this labeling was one of the reasons for the small number of people willing to fight for integration (Brown, 2002, p.99-100). Braden also “documented that many of the leading members of HUAC were southern racists” (Brown, 2002, p.100). In 1963, the Bradens became the codirectors of SCEF and remained with the organization until its break up in 1973, believed by Anne to be caused at least in part by COINTELPRO.

During the 1970s, Anne wrote two open letters to southern white women, in which “she urges white women to build a women's movement that is not at odds with the Black liberation struggle” (Thompson, 2001, p. 127). Since then, Anne has been involved in work led by people of color, mainly in the Southern Organizing Committee (SOC) and the Kentucky Alliance against Racist and Political Repression (Thompson, 2001, p. 332-333).

Anne had three children. She is the author of The Wall Between (1958), a book about the sedition trial and campaign against racism. Up until her death, Anne continued"to work eighteen-hour days as an activist and writer in Louisville, teaches college courses on racism, and speaks widely on antiracism and social justice” (Thompson, 2001, p.384).

Click here to read "A Time To Organize," Anne Braden's address to the Midwest Meeting of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism on March 27, 2004, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Anne Braden died on March 6, 2006. Here are a sampling of her obituaries.

References

Brown, Cynthia Stokes. (2002). Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Teachers College Press.

Thompson, Becky. (2001). A Promise and a Way of Life: White Antiracist Activism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.