Introduction: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Social Justice in the Ohio Valley

FAI. L 2007 Introduction Anne Braden and the Struggle for Social Justice in the Ohio Valley Catherine Fosl,Guest CoEditor n Alarch 6, 2006, the nation lost a tireless human rights crusader who was a native · and loncrtime resident of the Ohio Valley For b nearly six decades, Louisvilli. in Anne McCartv Braden vas one of the southern civil rights movement s most dedicated white allies. This special issue of Ohio Valley History,highlights Braden' s legacy with tin examination of several local postWc , rld War II social justice campaigns in the Ohio Valley and the announcenlent of a new academic institution named in her honor at the University of Louisville. ' Ihe Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research was established by the university's College of Arts and Sciences in November 2006. It is · appropriate,perhaps,in light of Braden' s relentless dedication to r· acial . -, and social justice that these , 109' 9" 9911#' 15' I Police mug shot of Anne Braden, after herarrest fordemonstrating againstthe Professional Golfers Association and its refusal to hire minoritycontractors as vendors,1996. ANNE BRADEN INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. RESEARCH use of those collections nationally,as well as an annual research award for student papers. The institute also will host offcampus " community conversations " in the Louisville area with visiting scholars and sponsoring biennial symposia on various topics. The first,scheduled for 2008,explores the concept of " engaged scholarship" and social justicedriven learning. I[ he essays in this volume of Ohio Valley History represent the sort ofhistorical research the Anne Braden Institute hopes to stimulate and support. ANNE BRADEN AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE Fittingly,in light of the 1954 housing desegregation · action that brought the Bradens to national attention, two of the three essays included here explore local campaigns related to housing. James E.Cebula' s piece on the Kennedy Heights neighborhood in postwar Cincinnati opens in the years immediately following World War II, the same period in which segreg: zted housing first presented itself as a profound social problem and during which Anne Braden first immersed herself in civil rights causes. Some historians have referred to that moment as one of" opportunities found and lost," when popular demands for refi, rm became briefly more visible and widespread until a g.athering Cold War quieted them. Even symbolic measures such as the Brown e. Board of Edlicatioll court decision more firmly aligned tlle federal Lovernment with a civil rights ideal.· At about the same time that residents of Kennedy IIeights began to confront the challenges of what Cebula calls creating an intentional interracial community" in Cincinnati amid " white flight," Anne and Carl Braden were engaged in the same work ninety miles south. They did so first bv resisting white flight and p, irchasing in 1952 their own home iii the west end of Louisville, one of the few neighborhoods open then to the city's expanding African American population, and then by assisting the Wades iii the suburban purchase that catapulted both families into notoriety. In subsequent years, their west end neighborhood underwent sonic of the same processes seen in Kennedy Heights. Tracy E. K'Meyer's contribution here examines the efforts of Braden and others associated with the West End Community Council to keep their neighborhood interraci·al ·, ind later to heighten simultaneously black consciousness ind community improvement. Although the centr·al focus of Anne Braden' s activism was racial justice ,for her that value was closely linked to an end to both poverty and war. t « ' NAACPchairand civil rights advocate Julian Bond cuts theribbon to announce theopening of the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, April 4,2007. BILLCARNER, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE PHOTO ARCHIVES OHIO VALLEY HISTORY 4 CATH ERINE FOSI1 he final essay in this issue, Rhonda Mawhood Lee's exploration of antiwar activism in Louisville in the wake of the Vietnam War through a case study of the Fellowship of Reconciliation ( FOR), completes that triad of Braden' s passions. Lee's study devotes considerable attention to two stalwart figures of Braden' s generation who were her friends · and allies,George and Jean Edwards. There is a kind of poetic justice in selecting an ess' avon the Louisville chapter...