Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South

448 Pages·2002·1.48 MB·English

by  Catherine Fosl

SUBVERSIVE SOUTHERNER
ANNE BRADEN AND THE STRUGGLE
FOR RACIAL JUSTICE IN THE COLD WAR SOUTH
Catherine Fosl
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ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR
CATHERINE FOSL’S SUBVERSIVE SOUTHERNER
“... [one of two] excellent biographies based on extensive research.”
—Jo Freeman, Women’s Review of Books
“Subversive Southerneris an excellent and inspiring read.”
—Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, The Progressive
“Fosl... gives Braden the recognition she rightly deserves. Recommended.”
—P. D. Travis, Choice
“Fosl conveys the bravery and uncompromising convictions that made Anne
Braden an important figure... in the labor and civil rights movement.”
—Amy Strong, Library Journal
“Anne Braden’s life as a social activist spans more than half a century, and her
story is as instructive as it is inspirational. The old cliché certainly applies
here: I could not put this book down, and did not want it to end.”
—John Dittmer, Crandall Professor of History,
DePaul University and author of
Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
“This book will join a critical debate on the impact of the cold war on the civil
rights movement.... As important, it will take its place among the very best of
the feminist biographies that have changed the way women imagine—and
live—their lives.”
—Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Spruill Professor of History,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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SUBVERSIVE SOUTHERNER
ANNE BRADEN AND THE STRUGGLE
FOR RACIAL JUSTICE
IN THE COLD WAR SOUTH
Catherine Fosl
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SUBVERSIVESOUTHERNER
Copyright © Catherine Fosl, 2002.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in
any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in hardcover in 2002 by Palgrave Macmillan
First PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ paperback edition: April 2004
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS.
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the
Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave
Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United
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trademark in the European Union and other countries.
ISBN 1-4039-6544-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fosl, Catherine.
Subversive southerner : Anne Braden and the struggle for racial
justice in the Cold War South / by Catherine Fosl.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-4039-6544-7
1. Braden, Anne, 1924– 2. Women civil rights workers—Southern
States—Biography. 3. Civil rights workers—Southern States—
Biography. 4. White women—Southern States—Biography.
5. African Americans—Civil rights—Southern States—History—20th
Century. 6. Civil rights movements—Southern States—History—
20th century. 7. Southern States—Race relations. 8. Louisville
(Ky.)—Race relations. 9. Louisville (Ky.)—Biography. I. Title.
E185.98.B73 F67 2002
305.8’00973—dc21
2002074836
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Letra Libre.
First PALGRAVE MACMILLAN paperback edition: April 2004
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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To my sons,
Isaac and Elijah
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The dark ancestral cave, the womb from which mankind
emerged into the light, forever pulls one back—but... you can’t
go home again.... You can’t go back home to your family, back
home to your childhood... to one’s youthful idea of... “art”
and “beauty” and “love,” back home to the ivory tower... back
home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden
for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which
once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time—
back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.
—Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again
(New York: Harper & Row, 1940;
reprint 1998), 666.
When we are 80 years old, I think we will have no regrets.
—Anne Braden to Carl Braden, prison correspondence,
February 17, 1955
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CONTENTS
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis ix
Acknowledgments xii
List of Abbreviations xv
Chronology of Anne Braden’s Life xvii
Introduction xx
PART ONE
Prologue The Power of Place 3
Chapter 1 A White Southern Childhood 13
Chapter 2 Intellectual Awakening 33
Chapter 3 Alabama Newspaperwoman 57
PART TWO
Chapter 4 Political Awakening 83
Chapter 5 Marriage and Movement 103
Chapter 6 The Wade Case—No Turning Back 135
Chapter 7 Fighting Back—The 1950s Resistance Movement 175
Chapter 8 A Voice Crying in the Wilderness—
Early SCEF Years 201
PART THREE
Chapter 9 The Mass Civil Rights Movement—
Beginning of a New Day 245
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Chapter 10 Opening Up the Southern Police State 269
Chapter 11 End of an Era 293
PART FOUR
Chapter 12 The Next Three Decades:
The Struggle Continues 313
Epilogue 333
Notes 343
Bibliography 393
Index 407
16 pages of photos appear between pages 242 and 243
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FOREWORD
Angela Y. Davis
WHENCATHERINEFOSLANDANNEBRADENbegan collaborating on this
history of Anne’s radical activism during the Cold War years, they could not
have predicted how dramatically it would resonate with current political condi-
tions. This riveting account of dangerous alliances across racial boundaries can
now be read as an incisive reflection on the importance of challenging the Bush
administration’s aggressive policies in the aftermath of the 2001 attack on the
World Trade Center. The labeling of much opposition to U.S. foreign policy
(and especially the war on Afghanistan) as “unpatriotic” recalls in a startling
way the depiction of anti-racist activism as “un-American” during the Mc-
Carthy era. If we recognize these historical parallels, then perhaps we should
also be prepared to learn from those who resisted easy indifference or active co-
operation with the anticommunist practices of the post–World War II period.
Subversive Southerner covers Anne Braden’s life before and during the era
of the civil rights movement. As Catherine Fosl reminds us, after more than
50 years of campaigns, protests, and advocacy, Anne Braden still devotes her
life to the eradication of racism. She surely knows that her work has enabled
vast and often spectacular social changes—changes that most of her contem-
poraries during the 1950s would never have been able to imagine. I hope she
also recognizes how much she helped to reconfigure the very terrain on
which social movements are organized. When we challenge structural racism
and violence by vigorously defending immigrant rights, opposing violence
against women, and protesting the prison industrial complex, we should
know that we are also upholding the legacy of struggle that emerges from
Anne’s life story.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to have learned about Anne
Braden’s obsession with racial equality when I was still quite young. During