Anne Braden (1924 - 2006)
Mon Jul 28, 1924
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Anne Braden, born on this day in 1924, was an American civil rights activist and educator who, along with her husband Carl, was arrested several times for breaking the law in the name of racial equality.
Raised in the rigidly segregated Anniston, Alabama, Braden grew up in a white, middle-class family that accepted southern racism, later experiencing a “a conversion of almost religious intensity” and becoming an anti-racist activist.
In 1954, Andrew and Charlotte Wade, a black couple who knew Anne and her husband Carl Braden, approached them with a proposal to buy a house on their behalf in a suburb in which they couldn’t purchase a home due to Jim Crow laws.
The Bradens agreed to the deal, and, on the Wades’ first night in the new suburbs, angry residents burned a cross in their yard and shot out the windows to the house. Six weeks later, the Wades’ new house was dynamited one evening while they were out.
After a sensationalized trial, her husband Carl Braden - the perceived ringleader - was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, although the Supreme Court ruled the laws on which he was convicted unconstitutional and he was freed after eight months.
Later in life, Anne Braden joined Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow/PUSH Coalition” and continued her social activism. In 2005, a year before her death, she joined Louisville antiwar demonstrations in a wheelchair.
- Date: 1924-07-28
- Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, snccdigital.org, crossculturalsolidarity.com, www.zinnedproject.org.
- Tags: #Birthdays.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org
Thank you for educating me on this outstanding couple! It is encouraging to hear about a middle class white couple to stand up against racial inequality in one of the hardest states to do so in the U.S.
It’s clear from the context what you want to say, but it should be “stand up for racial equality” or “stand up against racial inequality”.
Yep, I edited it. Thanks!
I also think people should read/listen to her, describing “the other America”, incredible woman with powerful words. Deserving of a place in our history books imo.
