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Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Anne Braden, civil rights warrior, dies




Anne Braden (1924 - 2006)


Anne and Carl Braden, cofounders of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, Inc. (SCEF) of New Orleans, were often the focus of government interest. As two of the most active and determined white anti-racist crusaders of the 1950s and beyond, the Bradens spent much of their time in the Delta; easily, over a thousand reports regarding both Anne and Carl Braden, as individuals and as a couple, are contained in Sovereignty Commission files.

SCEF grew out of the Southern Conference on Human Welfare (S”CHW), a New Deal organization formed in 1938 “based on a vision of a new democratic south that would be built jointly by black and white people.” Supporters included Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1948, SCEF was formed as its tax-exempt educational arm and later took over when SCHW closed down. SCEF raised funds for black activists, lobbied for Truman’s civil rights proposals and tried to educate southern whites on racism.

Frequently the Bradens were labeled as “Communists” by Mississippi’s segregationist leaders because of their ties to SCEF and to a liberal retreat center in Tennessee, The Highlander Center (also attended by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and many others in the civil rights movement). Julian Bond referred to them as “modern abolitionists.”


Their troubles began in 1954 when the couple purchased a house in a segregated area of Louisville, Kentucky for an African American family. Local racists targeted the house and burned a cross in the front yard. The house was finally destroyed in a bomb blast. The criminals were never brought to trial; instead, they and several other anti-racist activists were accused of conspiring in a Communist plot against the state.

Carl Braden received a fifteen-year prison sentence for sedition, a sentence that the U. S. Supreme Court overturned within months. “The unique thing about the Cold War in the South was that [fighting it] was inextricably tied to the battle against white supremacy,” Anne Braden told author Catherine Fosl. “That was the reason for all the hysteria against us in Louisville. It was anti-red and anti-black hysteria wrapped up and thrown at us.”

SCEF became a nurturing force behind the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), providing it with funding, mailing lists, and access to major Northern donors. The Bradens were active in the Delta and often linked to Amzie Moore, who once received a loan from SCEF with their assistance, to save his business and home while personally supporting civil rights activists.

Activists like the Bradens were frequently summoned to testify about their "disloyal" activities before the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities Committee or before SISS. As a result, some activists left the movement altogether while others continued to work for equality despite the false charges and terrorism they faced coming from their own government and fellow citizens.

(From "Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited." This book is now available online. Click here to read all chapters.)

Anne Braden died today, March 7, 2006, from pneumonia. Tributes to this civil rights warrior are posted on the website of the Civil Rights Movement veterans.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Mount Holyoke Conference


For Immediate Release
March 2, 2006
Susan Orr-Klopfer
Fort Madison, IA 52627
319-372-8534
cell 775-340-3585
sklopfer@earthlink.net
http://themiddleoftheinternet.com

Fort Madison Writer Speaks at Mount Holyoke Conference

(Fort Madison, Iowa) -- Fort Madison writer, Susan Orr-Klopfer, is set to appear Thursday, March 9, at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., on a civil rights panel sponsored by the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts. Klopfer, the author of "Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited," will talk about her experiences living in the Mississippi Delta for two years while investigating and writing about four civil rights cold cases. She is to appear with Ben Chaney, the brother of slain activist James Chaney.

"The Civil Rights era in America stands out as a period of great national upheaval and of unprecedented moments of community solidarity. The era is synonymous with non-violent resistance, and also with barbarous acts of violence that ranged from murders of young civil rights workers to the assassinations of prominent public officials. Our speakers Ben Chaney and Susan Orr-Klopfer share powerful links to this explosive American past and are dedicated to seeking justice for those persecuted and killed during the Civil Rights era," said a spokesperson for the Weissman Center.

"In June 1964, three young civil rights workers named James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner who were part of Freedom Summer began their work in Meridian, Mississippi. They were captured, beaten, and then murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The three men were buried in an earthen dam and were not found for some forty-four days after the killings. In January 2005, the state of Mississippi finally filed its first charges against one of the Ku Klux Klan members involved in the murders. In June, the charged man was convicted of three counts of manslaughter and sentenced to sixty years in prison.

"Ben Chaney is the younger brother of the slain activist James Chaney. A native of Meridian, Mississippi, he came of age during the Civil Rights Movement. Before his twelfth birthday, Ben Chaney already had been arrested on more than twenty occasions for his role in non-violent civil rights demonstrations. He is the founder and president of the James Earl Chaney Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 1998 and that is committed to civil rights, human rights, and to social justice.

"Susan Orr-Klopfer is an investigative journalist and the author of two powerful and illuminating books on the Civil Rights Movement. Her most recent work, Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited is a riveting documentary history that sheds light on conspiracies, murders, civil rights activism, and community politics in Mississippi, the state in which James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were slain in 1964. Ms. Orr-Klopfer also is the author of The Emmett Till Book, a work that revisits the world in which 14-year old Emmett Till was kidnapped and lynched in August 1955."


Event Details
Date: Thursday, March 9

Time: 7:30 PM

Speaker: Ben Chaney and Susan Orr-Klopfer

Place: Gamble Auditorium, Mount Holyoke College

Admission: Free and open to the public.

Contact Information, Mount Holyoke:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/omc/acts/contact.html