"Black Freedom, White Allies, Red Scare: Louisville, 1954": Louisville Free Public Library, Main Branch, October 1–November 9, 2014

70 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Exhibit Review “Black Freedom, White Allies, Red Scare: Louisville, 1954” Louisville Free Public Library, Main Branch, October 1-November 9, 2014 Elizabeth Gritter S ituated within the larger civil rights and Cold War context, “Black Freedom, White Allies, Red Scare: Louisville, 1954” is an excellent exhibit that details the stories of Andrew and Charlotte Wade and Anne and Carl Braden in Louisville, Kentucky. Imagine, for a moment, being a black middle-class family in the Jim Crow South, faced with living in the substandard housing areas that African Americans usually occupied. Desiring a better life for your family, you decide to find a home in a middle-class white neighborhood. Your intention was not explicitly about civil rights, and yet you find yourself the victim of harassment, threats, and even a bombing that destroys half your home after you move in. Ultimately, you leave that home and your neighborhood. The Wade family, including their two-year-old daughter, found themselves in exactly that predicament in 1954. As was too often the case in the Jim Crow South, those who committed violence against the Wades were never prosecuted. Now try to imagine being a white liberal couple, involved in progressive causes, who had bought the home for the Wades (they could not buy it themselves because they were black) and turned over the keys to them. As a result of the opposition the Wades faced after beginning to live in their house, this white couple, five other whites, and representatives of African American organizations (including the NAACP), formed the Wade Defense Committee to protect the family and call for a grand jury hearing concerning the violence against them. But it was not the bombers who were brought to trial but the whites on the defense committee, and a white man, considered the ring leader, was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in jail. Hard to imagine? Yes. True? Also, yes. The exhibit particularly focuses on Anne and Carl Braden (they bought the house for the Wades) exploring their long history in support of progressive causes and Carl’s jail sentence for sedition. Historians have long griped at how public history can neglect to have an academically sound perspective. But that is not a problem with this exhibit, which includes explanatory text from Catherine Fosl, Anne Braden’s biographer and ELIZABETH GRITTER WINTER 2014 71 the exhibit’s curator, as well as from staff members of the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, all based at the University of Louisville. Presented by the Institute, the University of Louisville Library, the Courier-Journal, and the Louisville Free Public Library, this exhibit includes thirteen panels, each featuring explanatory text and primary documents on aspects of the Braden-Wade case and the larger civil rights and Cold War contexts, framed quotations and photographs between the panels, a chronology of the case, and four display cases with artifacts, mainly documents. The exhibit was organized to mark the sixtieth anniversary of, as it notes, the “home purchase, bombing, and trial that shook Louisville and the nation.” Panels include ones on World War II (Andrew Wade served in the U.S. Navy and, like many African American veterans, was engaged in civil rights activism), black-white alliances for civil rights (as the exhibit points out, although African Americans took the lead in the freedom struggle, white allies like the Bradens played crucial roles), the Cold War (the Bradens and other black and white activists were charged with being “communistic”), women in the civil rights movement (although men mainly occupied formal leadership positions, women were uniquely positioned to serve as community leaders), and massive resistance following the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled segregated schools unconstitutional (the Wades moved into their house just two days before this decision was handed down). The Wade Family from “Louisville Travesty,” pamphlet, circa 1956 by Louis Redding. UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE ANNE BRADEN INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE RESEARCH “BLACK FREEDOM, WHITE ALLIES, RED SCARE: LOUISVILLE, 1954” 72 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Charged with making the Wade purchase as part of a communist plot, the Bradens saw some eight hundred copies of their books, ranging...