The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Anne Braden papers

Repository: University of Louisville. University Archives & Records Center

Collection Description (CRHP): The collection includes interviews of Anne Braden as well as an interview she did of renowned civil rights activist C. T. Vivian.

Collection Description (Extant): This collection contains 153.375 linear feet of materials related to or collected by Louisville social justice activist Anne Braden from early childhood until her death in 2006. While the collection includes a significant amount of personal materials from Anne and her husband Carl, the bulk of this material relates to their roles as civil rights activists, including its expression in Anne's writings, teaching materials, and correspondence. Also included are materials written about the Bradens. These papers take the form of correspondence, booklets and flyers, manuscripts, syllabi, audio and video tapes, and photographs. Included in the personal materials are scrapbooks, yearbooks, and diaries.

The largest series in this collection consists of materials relating to the various organizations that Braden was part of, from the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF) and the Carl Braden Memorial Center (which she founded upon her husband's death) to St. George Episcopal Church in Louisville and the Center for Democratic Renewal, among others. Her involvement with the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (Kentucky Alliance), which she helped initiate in the late 1970s as a local branch of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice (SOC) are well documented. SOC, founded by Braden after she left SCEF, fought for tenants' rights, environmental justice, labor concerns, and against racism. The Kentucky Alliance had similar concerns, working to combat police brutality and to promote school equality, fair labor, environmental justice and similar issues.

The collection also includes subject files on issues and individuals, including topics such as environmental justice, particular legal cases, race and racism, prisoners' rights, education, war and peace. Included as well are printed materials (newsletters, flyers, booklets, buttons, etc.) relating to a similar range of topics. In addition, there are materials written about the Bradens by others, including plays and theses, a variety of audio and video tapes, and several boxes of unidentified photographs.

Access Copy Note: No restrictions.

Date(s): 1920s-2006 (bulk 1970s-2006)

Digital Status: No

Existing IDs: Accession: 2006-050

Extent: 153.375 linear feet

Finding Aid URL: http://louisville.edu/library/archives/findingaids/braden.html

Language: English

Related Archival Items: Anne and her husband Carl Braden donated their papers to the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) in the 1950s; a large collection of their papers, including materials in Anne's possession at the time of her death, are thus housed at WHS. There are also small Braden collections at the University of Tennessee and the University of Kentucky.

The Living the Story collection at the Kentucky Historical Society includes a videotaped interview of Anne Braden.

The University of Louisville Archives holds interviews with Anne Braden from the Progress in Education collection.

The Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, which opened in 2007, has a reading room that includes the Anne and Carl Braden Books Collection, their personal library of about 2100 books. The majority of those (non-circulating) books are on the civil rights movement, and some contain Anne's marginalia that pertain to the movement. The books have recently been catalogued as a subset of the overall Ekstrom library collection of the University of Louisville, and the Braden Institute also has its own inventory. The institute also has a 1000-plus volume collection of periodicals. In addition, it has a small collection of primary documents and photos that includes private correspondence, Braden-authored pamphlets, and a full run of the "Southern Patriot" newspaper of SCEF.

The interviews Catherine Fosl did for her biography, 'Subversive Southerner,' on Anne Braden are at the oral history center of the University of Kentucky.

Also see the film "Anne Braden: Southern Patriot." The extra footage is at Appalshop.

Interviewees: Anne Braden, C. T. Vivian

Rights (Extant): Copyright for some materials has been transferred to the University of Louisville.

Subjects:

Anti-communist movements
Anti-racism
Civil rights movements--Kentucky
Civil rights movements--Southern States
Civil rights workers--Kentucky
Discrimination in housing
Environmentalism
Highlander Folk School (Monteagle, Tenn.)
Louisville (Ky.)
Peace movements
Southern Conference Educational Fund
Violence

Genres:

Interviews
Lectures
Manuscripts
Photographs
Sound recordings
Speeches
Transcripts
Videorecordings