14 Facts About Anne Braden

Anne McCarty Braden was an American civil rights activist, journalist, and educator dedicated to the cause of racial equality.

Anne Braden wrote and organized for the southern civil rights movement before violations became national news.

The experience that so affected her, in 1946, was witnessing a march of black veterans to the Birmingham courthouse, led by Louis Burnham of the Southern Negro Youth Congress, demanding the right to vote; with Anne Braden covering the story as a reporter for the Birmingham News.

Anne Braden became a supporter of the Civil Rights Movement at a time when it was unpopular among southern whites.

In 1950, Anne Braden spearheaded a hospital desegregation drive in Kentucky.

Carl Anne Braden died suddenly of a heart attack on February 18,1975.

Anne Braden instigated the formation of a new regional multiracial organization, the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice, which initiated battles against environmental racism.

In 1977, Anne Braden became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press.

Anne Braden cofounded the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and continued involvement in local activism addressing modern concerns of police brutality, environmental racism, and LGBT rights.

Anne Braden died on March 6,2006, at Jewish Hospital in Louisville and was buried at Eminence Cemetery in Eminence, Kentucky.

Anne Braden was remembered by many in the civil rights movement, including Ira Grupper, Dorie Ladner, David Nolan, Efia Nwangaza, and Gwendolyn Patton.

Anne Braden received the American Civil Liberties Union's first Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty in 1990 for her contributions to civil liberties.

The track includes several audio samples of Anne Braden, describing her life and thoughts on race in her own words.

In 1958 Anne Braden wrote The Wall Between, a memoir of their sedition case.