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

Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twentieth Century

by Catherine Fosl

Oral History Association Book Award winner in 2003

Anne McCarty Braden is a southern white woman who made a dramatic break with her native, segregationist culture in the years just following World War II to commit her life to the causes of racial and social justice. One of the few white people, particularly from the South, to join the southern black freedom movement in its nascent years in the 1950s, Braden became a role model and inspiration for the thousands of young white people that joined the mass movement a decade later.

Braden stands nearly alone among other women of her race, class, region, and generation in her dedication to social change. Born in 1924, Braden came of age after the women's rights and social reform crusades of the early part of the 20th century, and after the young activist women of the 1960s launched the civil rights, student, and women's liberation movements. Yet Braden's life has intersected on some level with most of the great social movements of her lifetime, and represents a central link that connects the southern protest movements of the 1930s and 1940s to the mass civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Social Justice, Race, Politics, Sociology

320 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Sara Morsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has long been one of my favorite biographies. Growing up in Louisville, KY where Anne Braden was a legend or a notorious character, depending on who was speaking of her, her story has always intrigued me. My first visit to The Civil Rights Museum in Memphis revealed to me that she was a major player in the civil rights struggle. Martin Luther King makes mention of Anne in his famous "Letter From Ther Birmingham Jail." My dearest friend from Louisville gave me a copy of Subversive Southerner signed by Catherine Fosl the author and by Anne herself when the book was first published. I have read it numerous times over the years and always return to Anne's story and the many periods of our history that Cate so expertly weaves into it.

I was so touched and moved by this story that I contacted Catherine Fosl to secure the audio rights. I am currently creating the audiobook of this wonderful book. I'd love for you to listen and/or read the book itself. It is an important story of passion, courage, patience and a life well lived. I can't say enough about Anne Braden or her brilliant biographer Catherine Fosl.

[Mare · Rating 4 out of 5]

i knew Anne Braden was a badass, but...
DAMN. ANNE BRADEN WAS A BADASS.
Like how did you hang out with all my heroes? and then lesser heroes warned them not to hang out with you because you were too radical? but then they did anyway? and how did you understand intersectional feminism and the necessity of white anti-racist organizing like 40 years before the rest of America struggled to understand those things?
Also, Louisville - YOU CRAZY. How you gonna have a KKK rally 10k deep on the eve of school busing in 1975, but then go for Jesse Jackson in '84 AND '88? And still be asking Anne if she's in the Communist Party in the 1990s??
Dude, it's wild. Anne Braden was a badass.

[Andy Mendoza Beasley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a feeling I'm going to be buying a lot of copies of this book for my friends.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a valuable book in that it thoroughly educates about an underappreciated 20th century racial justice activist. It is otherwise rather tedious and disorganized, especially in how Fosl seems to repeat or rephrase events several times at several different places. But the value it offers ultimately outweighs the annoyances. Mainly I found myself wishing Braden herself had written a later memoir after her first one in 1958, simply because her own words (which Fosl quotes at length) are significantly more compelling than Fosl's descriptions.

I personally found value in a few different aspects of the book:

1) As stated above, it works as simple biography since most people have no idea who Braden is, or the influence she had on antiracist activism in the 20th century and beyond. . . her story itself is inspiring.

2) It describes in more detail than usual the specifics of organizing, including networking to identify sympathetic individuals, hosting house parties for speaking and education, or printing pamphlets and newspapers.

3) It elaborates at length on how the Red Scare or "red-baiting" was used incredibly blatantly to thwart antiracist efforts like desegregation. . . this is a lesson we are even dealing with today in the form of a new wave of Russia hysteria (which amazingly enough liberals still use to punch left).

4) In the struggle between radicalism and incrementalism, this book falls firmly into the radicalism camp. The Bradens buying a house for a Black family in 1950s segregated Louisville was a radical action that Fosl clearly admires, and she has little patience for the moderate liberal scolding that the Bradens faced in response. As a radical myself I would not accept any other analysis.

5) Finally and perhaps most importantly, the overall theme of the book is the need to organize Whites to fight antiracism. There are plenty of Black folks who are fighting hard, and what they not only need but deserve is White allies who will leverage their privilege to defend Black bodies and rights. What's more, Whites need to do this humbly in supporting roles, without expecting to lead the actual movement. One of the chief tensions Fosl highlights in the book is the balance between allowing Black activists the space to organize their own movements, and still help them without organizing a completely segregated faction for Whites. This is a balance Braden struggled with throughout her life, but from Fosl's description she had her heart in the right place and always knew that a White ally's place was either beside or behind their Black comrade, not in front. The strategy for realizing that vision is still somewhat fuzzy, but being intentional about roles is key.

I'm an antiracist and socialist who lives in the South and recognizes the huge importance of organizing (for economic/labor/health as well as racial justice). Naturally this book was interesting and useful for me, even if I think Fosl could have made a better book by shaving off 50-100 pages. I would recommend it to other people who share at least two of the four characteristics I just listed about myself (or maybe if you are simply interested in the South, without necessarily living there).

Not Bad Reviews

@pointblaek

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

the only reason this didn't get five stars is because i find detailed biographies very tedious to read. i partially solved that by listening to it as an audiobook, but many times wished i had the passages in front of me to copy down or return to.

i would definitely recommend this book to any white friends seeking to learn more about what their role might be in anti-racist/ racial justice pursuits. when coming to terms with our racist legacy and the life we enjoy at others' expense, many whites ask "what can I do?" over and over again, perhaps because it really isn't clear, or perhaps because they can't find an answer that suits them. anne braden asked and answered that question with real curiosity and at great personal sacrifice at every stage of her life. she constantly adapted her approach, listened to others around her, and as soon as she had cleared a path forward, made sure the marginalized were the next ones to follow. rather than disavow her southernness and the culture of racism she was born into, she decided to transform what it meant to be a southern woman.

i never understood how significantly anti-communism in the south affected the struggle for civil rights until reading this account. anne tried again and again to recruit whites to join the black liberation movement over shared economic interests, but the political climate of red-baiting actively (and purposefully) prevented that realization. she was unabashedly anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist and rejected the fear of mccarthyism that kept so many other sympathetic southerners from engaging or speaking up.

i love that she and dr. king were taught "we shall overcome" by pete seeger on the same night. i love that she invited coretta into the room when no one else thought of it, because she knew she had something to say. i love that she agonized over highlighting white action in her journalism, knowing that white people were both the only solution and also not at all the solution. i love that she wasn't a joiner and remained a fiercely independent thinker all her life. i love that she constantly checked her participation, aware of the boundary between encouragement and control.

i plan to get my hands on some of her writing. in short order she has become someone i respect a great deal, and certainly a model of anti-racist activism and service to others.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been feeling really low about people's capacity for being "heroic" over the past few years, due to a confluence of public and personal events that seemed to undercut many people I had admired by (valid) critiques from several angles. Everybody who would have given me hope was either subsumed into the mainstream movement towards "progress" (defined so nebulously as to foreclose any discussion of efficacy w.r.t. methodology) or was shut out / shut down from any ability to bring about their goals. This loss of faith in leaders led me (rightfully, I feel) towards the belief that I must take an active role in bringing about a better world, but I was still filled with this conflicting misanthropy towards the present combined with an increasingly tenuous determination to believe in the capacity for a society greater than this.

Reading this book has given me hope. Apologies for what seems to be me holding this book over my head, a shaft of light shining down upon it. Anne Braden has given me hope and, more importantly, a source of inspiration. This is someone who realized that the world needed to be different, did their level best to gain an understanding of the ways that people were being subjugated by the society around them, and got to work on addressing those issues in the face of enormous opposition from the explicit and implicit power structures of the time.

These are insurmountable odds laid low. This is a person who never mistook herself or anyone else for the movement. This is a person, who through all her hardship, lived a life worth envying.

The book is fantastic at describing its subject, as well as explicating the ties between southern anticommunism and segregationist ideology. Highly recommended.

[DH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fosl's bio of Anne Braden provides a unique and vital analysis of the southern civil rights movement through the experience of a white radical. Fosl ably employs her oral history interviews with Braden to enliven the story of the transition from the left labor radicalism of the 30s and 40s through the McCarthy period to the rise of the civil rights era and the new left. "Subversive Southerner" elevates Braden's role in the the struggle for justice and equality in the south by shedding new light on the dynamics of the civil rights movement.

[Dan Zoeller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating and inspiring story but reads like a series of term papers. in depth but very dry.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Subversive Southerner by Catherine Fosl left me liking Anne Braden less than the typical Louisvillian at the beginning of this century. The hero worship of Anne and her husband Carl in Louisville was overwhelming. Everyone in any liberal/left leaning group of which I was a member or a fringe member recommended this book and Anne's own book The Wall Between, endlessly. I respected, and still respect, the people connected with The Anne Braden Center at the University of Louisville as some of the most dedicated, organized and intelligent people I have ever known. But, this book was not a hit for me. At its best, the book was repetitive and much too long. Maybe the author was channeling the saying that “In the south it takes 30 minutes to say goodbye.” Catherine Fosl could have said The End much sooner and used a strict editor.

Anne Braden was naive. After Brown vs. Board of Education case was decided, Anne actually believed that everyone would just stop protesting all types of integration. Anne grew up as a middle/upper class southerner, how could she believe people, like her father, were ready to give blacks or women any rights that might impinge on white male privilege?

Carl and Anne Braden's marriage was presented in the book as a partnership, 50/50, nothing about their marriage seemed equal to me. It was reiterated, multiple times, that Carl was “brusque.” Not a nice person to be around. The book also mentioned that other members of their main organizations did not willingly share information with Anne and Carl because they “couldn't be trusted to use it in a responsible way.” That doesn't sound like someone I want leading my revolution. They were also know to complain about in-fighting in these groups. If you've ever been in a group of three or more people, you know that there will always be a certain amount of in-fighting. Deal with it or move on!

At the beginning of the book, I was hoping for more history of the Civil Rights movement in the country and in Louisville. There were some links to the history happening around the Bradens but more in depth connections to the actual events and people of the movement instead of following the Bradens from lecture to courtroom would have kept me more interested.

If you would like to read about couples/families affected by events during the McCarthy Era, I would recommend “We are your sons” by Robert and Michael Meeripol the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg.

In the epilogue the author mentions that during the research for this book Anne was “frustratingly unavailable” to her. Can you imagine being a child in the Braden family when Carl and Anne's thoughts and focus never left The Cause?

About the audiobook read by Sara Morsey. I can understand the choice of Ms. Morsey to read this title because of her sweet southern accent but I found her distracting. When she insisted on reading each letter of N A A C P , (over and over) I almost stopped listening. I believe that any other reader, including myself, would have read NAACP as the accepted NdoubleACP. How do news readers read commonly accepted and understood abbreviations?

Quotable:

Her twentieth-century radicalism was nurtured from within a deep attachment to place and a vision of that place as it might be.

She followed his lead almost without exception on how to direct their political energies and was brought up short on one occasion when she tried to tell a fellow activist, “Carl said,” only to be interrupted with the curt reply: “Carl isn't always right!”

[reading.withree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anne McCarty Braden was a white Southern woman who made a decisive break from the segregationist culture she was raised in and committed her life to racial and social justice after World War II. At a time when few white people in the South aligned themselves with the Black freedom struggle, Braden became an early and visible ally in the movement during the 1950s.
••
Her commitment set her apart from others of her race, class, and generation. She paved the way for the white activists who would join the civil rights movement in larger numbers in the 1960s. Born in 1924, Braden’s life intersected with many of the major social movements of the twentieth century, linking earlier Southern protest efforts to the mass civil rights movement that followed.
••
Her story is a reminder that real change often begins long before it becomes visible and that choosing justice sometimes means standing alone.
•••••
This was a good read. The writing style was sometimes hard to follow though. At times I felt like I was reading a term paper.

[Linds · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Anne Braden is one of my longtime heroes, and Catherine Fosl’s biography of her life and work, beginning in her childhood in Alabama, is nothing short of exquisite. I found so many new things to love and respect about Anne through this book, and although written in 2003, it contains important lessons about organizing multiracial coalitions in a repressive society that I feel are very relevant to a new generation of Southern activists. This is a book I will be recommending to many people.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great biography of a racial justice hero. I learned a lot about how all of the different organizations in the civil rights movement interacted. I also didn't realize how much red-baiting was used to suppress civil rights workers. I knew about the Congressional HUAC, but didn't realize it was happening on the state level, too. Anne Braden had a lot of courage and stamina, and is an inspiring role model.

[Rachel Nations · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit academic, but a good read (listened to the audiobook) overall about a complicated person in a complicated time. The Cold War in America and its social impacts is a grey area for my knowledge, and this certainly filled in a lot of gaps. The book focused on Louisville less than I anticipated, but that was due to 1.) What the Bradens actually did, and 2.) What happened in Louisville that necessitated they focus their attentions elsewhere.

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A bit dense in places, but a fascinating story about an unknown (to me) figure in the history of the 50s and 60s. Prompted me to think about the intersection of civil rights and civil liberties in ways I hadn't done before.

[Amy Real Coultas · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books. Essential reading for anyone who is organizing for social change, for Louisvillians/Kentuckians, and for Episcopalians.

[gnarlyhiker · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Anne Braden Speaks: Selected Writings and Speeches, 1947-1999" is next.

good luck

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not well organized. Important topic but I can’t recommend it

[norah · Rating 5 out of 5]

summer reading for work!

[Ailecia Alabama · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anne Braden's name hit the headlines in 1954 when she and her husband, Carl, both white journalists in Louisville, Kentucky, bought a suburban home on behalf of Andrew and Charlotte Wade, an African American couple who were unable to buy the house themselves because of systematic discrimination in the housing market. After weeks of harassment upon moving into their new house, the Wade's home was partially destroyed by dynamite. The bombers were never brought to justice, but the Bradens, along with five other white supporters, were brought up on charges of sedition against the state of Kentucky.

Adding to the tiny historiography of white women who have committed their lives to the struggle for racial justice in the South, Catherine Fosl's biography of Braden gives readers a complete and previously unavailable look into the life of this notorious activist (most of the other writing about her primarily covers her husband, Carl). Part one covers Braden's childhood and young adulthood in Alabama, her family history (her ancestors were some of the first white settlers of Kentucky, which was the home of indigenous farmers before European colonization), and her early journalism career. Part two starts with her move to Louisville and covers her political awakening, her marriage to Carl and her role in the pre-civil rights movement era. This section is particularly valuable for its illumination of life in McCarthy-era America, specifically for antiracist white southerners who were targeted as Communists for their racial justice work.

Part three focuses on Braden's involvement in the civil rights movement, chronicling her attendance at the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's founding conference and continued work with the Southern Conference Educational Fund, detailing how she served as a role model for many young southern white civil rights activists. SNCC activist Joan Browning remembers, "Anne was one of the small group of [older] women who showed me that one could be a loyal Southerner and a respectable woman while fighting for social justice. The fact that Anne was Southern to the bone and had that wonderful slow Southern speech helped me redefine myself." Part four covers Braden's participation in various movements of the 1970s, for instance, her attendance at early feminist conferences and subsequent frustration at their whiteness. Though she continued to identify as a feminist, she focused most of her energy to work mostly in antiracist movements.

Unlike most biographical subjects, Braden is still alive; a great strength of the book is what Fosl refers to as techniques of "feminist biography": Subversive Southerner is grounded in oral history, which Braden's voice to emerge and challenge the story that is being told at different junctures. Particularly strong is the epilogue, where Fosl prints a dialogue between herself and Braden that seeks to clarify parts of the book that Braden disagreed with. The significant presence of Braden's voice adds even more richness to this biography.

The book's main flaw is its focus on the time period of 1950 to 1980. History tends to focus on events already recognized as "important," but a study of how one woman can sustain herself through a life of social activism is an under explored area of inquiry. Braden is still an activist today, and I, for one, would like to know how she's been able to keep it up for so many decades and sustain hope in the face of racism's persistence. Braden scratches the surface of this topic in the epilogue, when she says, "The meaning of our life and work was in the battles we fought. This is a very practical organizing question. People get immobilized because they've been told so often that nothing can really change." It's a point that begs for expansion.

This review was published in LiP Magazine December 2004.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Book

A surprising portion of Subversive Southerner is dedicated to Anne's upbringing in the South. At first I felt it was bordering on too much, but as the book progressed I found that detailed background helpful in understanding Anne's motives, her relationship with her family, and her interactions with others.

Anne's later life isn't explored nearly as in-depth, which is my only real complaint with the book. Fights for civil rights and civil liberties are still being fought and given that Anne literally worked as an activist until her death in 2006 I was hoping for a bit more detail regarding the last few decades.

That being said, for the events it does cover there is a lot of context given. It's not a straight up info dump, and Morsey does generally stick to relevant details, but there's a ton of historical information interspersed with Anne Braden's life and the book is the better for it. I learned a lot.

One thing I really loved, this being a biography of someone who was alive when it was finished, was the interview at the end with the author and Anne. That extra perspective was interesting and not something one usually gets with the typical historical biography.

This book was surprisingly personal to me. As someone born and raised in the South who moved up North at 25 to escape many of the things Anne fought against, it was an eyeopener into both how far we've come and how much farther we have to go. I wish I'd known about the Bradens' work growing up there because, being white, I didn't want to speak over people of color, but couldn't see a way to help much beyond examining my own actions and working to correct years of conditioning.

In all honesty Subversive Southerner should be subtitled "​How to Be an Effective Ally and Activist Without Making it All About You Even In the Very Unlikely Event Literally Everyone Else is Trying to Make it Be". As such, I'd highly recommend it to anyone - especially if you're white, straight, male, cisgender, ablebodied, or any combination of the above.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

As interesting as it was, there was no way I could read this all at once. Given that Braden's work (and most of her life) was centered around the Cold War era struggle for civil rights and civil liberties there are a LOT of injustices detailed in this book that are frequently (and often simultaneously) heartbreaking and infuriating.
​
The Narration

The narration starts off a bit weak, but within an hour or so it seemed Morsey really found her voice for this book. I appreciated the subtle differences in voice for quotes that didn't veer into actual character 'voices' that are so common in fiction narrations. She did use a rather specific and effective Southern accent/tone when reading quotes from Anne, which thankfully didn't drive me up the wall like so many television characters do.

Disclaimer

I received this audiobook for free in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions are entirely my own.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book. Amazing woman. Amazing life. I cannot believe I haven't read more about Anne Braden before now. 30 years an activist, and I knew virtually nothing about the connection between the anti-communist witchhunts and the prosegregationists in the south. To fight for civil rights was to be accused of being a communist, and Anne and Carl Braden spent their lives under the cloud of constant accusations. Rather than run from the pressure this put them under, they continued to organize for equality and justice, for interracial organizing, for economic justice, and they insisted upon staying in the south, focusing on involving white people in the struggle to support work initiated by African Americans. Their legacy lives on in young activists today, like those in the Catalyst Project, working with white activists to confront their own racism and the racism in the society in which we all live and struggle.

I read this after reading Barbara Ransby's biography of Ella Baker, and it started me on a project of reading biographies of women activists, known and not-so-well known, stories of lives that will inspire me, remind me of lessons I've learned and forgotten, and, with any luck, stories that will give me some much-needed strength and insight and energy to keep on keepin on.

[Sara Morsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb historical biography of one of my personal heroes, Anne Braden, written by Catherine Fosl. It follows the life of Anne McCarty Braden, a southerner born in Louisville, KY in 1924 and raised in Alabama. Anne realized at a young age the inequity in the social contract for African Americans, especially in the deep south. This realization caused her to change the trajectory of her life so she could fight for Social Justice in the American South. One of a handful of white women of her age and social background to understand her own role in the shaping of what would become The Civil Rights Movement, Anne stayed true to her convictions and her life goals through marriage, motherhood, demonization by friends and family, and a trial for sedition. The book chronicles a period of Progressive growth in America through The McCarty Era, The Cold War, The Vietnam War, The Peace Movement, and beyond, tying up threads of interaction woven by this amazing, self-realized woman. I loved the book so much that I sought the rights to narrate it. With the help of a close personal friend, the author herself, and The University Press of Kentucky, those rights were finally secured. The audiobook was published by Blackstone Audio in 2016 and is available digitally and on CD.

[Drick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ann Braden grew up in the segregated south in a traditional white Alabama home but became one of the most radical white activists for racial justice in the South in the 1940's-2006 when she died. Catherine Fosl has done an incredible job of putting Braden's amazing journey and transformation into historical context. Braden came into her own, along with her husband Carl, during the rise of anti-Communist paranoia in the U.S. Fosl and Braden clearly illustrate how the charge of being a "Communist" was used as a way of discrediting any and all who challenged the white supremacist culture of the segregated South. I would recommend this book to anyone (1) who wants to learn about the culture of the South and its resistance to change; (2) wants to read the story of an amazing white woman who gave herself in solidarity with the oppressed, especially blacks in the segregated South, and (3) needs inspiration that one can make a difference if one is willing to fully live out his/her convictions. I knew little about Ann Braden before reading this book; now she is one my heroines of justice and faith!

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly think I'm rating Braden herself as much as the book, but whatever: FIVE STARS FOR EVERYONE! Fosl's book covers a long, eventful life in a way that is consistently engaging, and she weaves together Braden's story with a broader examination of southern activism with impressive grace, only occasionally lapsing into what feels like unnecessary repetition. Braden's personal transformation -- from a child of southern privilege to a woman whose life was devoted to destroying the very system that shaped and nourished the world in which she was raised -- is as remarkable as her decades of social justice work, something which is confirmed by the 2002 interview which ends the book. In the interview, the 75+ Braden is achingly sharp, and speaks with arresting straightforwardness about systemic white supremacy and her ferocious battles against it, endowing the issues with clarity and matter of factness that are still far out of reach of most of white America.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Anne Braden does a magnificent job of bridging that sometimes difficult connection between the Cold War and Civil Rights Movement in the South during the 1950s and early 1960s. Braden isn't a well-known figure from the era yet she's mentioned by name in MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail and the story of her and her husband, Carl, and their persecution during the Cold War and how it relates to Civil Rights challenges is a story that needs to be known.

[Courtney Bagby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the audiobook version of Subversive Southerner.

There was a lot of information to process with this one. I'll probably have to grab a physical copy.

I'll have to come back and add more to this review, but my biggest take away is that there was a southern white woman who put a lot on the line to fight for the rights of black Americans; and I am proud and inspired by her.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read this book for a few years, but I really liked it when I read it. During the Civil Rights Movement, Anne Braden was a white ally. She was also working to unite the Civil Liberties movement with the Civil Rights movement.

[Debbe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fosl writes an excellent biography of Louisville's own Anne Braden. I've heard the author speak and she was able to do interview with Braden. Fosl is now the director of the The Anne Braden Institute For Social Justice Research at the University of Louisville.

[Chelsea Southworth]

MINE