From Anne Braden
Author: Braden, Anne
Date: May 30, 1961
Location: Louisville, Ky.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Freedom Rides
Details
Braden, a field organizer for the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), updates King on the imprisonment of her husband, Carl Braden, for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.1 King had agreed to sign a clemency petition for Braden on the condition that he was part of a group rather than the sole initiator.2 The petition was delivered to the White House on 17 August 1961.3
Dear Martin:
In a recent letter, Carl sent the following message to you:
“Please tell Martin, when you write him, how much I appreciate what he is doing in our behalf and how sorry I am that he didn’t get in to see me. I’m sure the jailor wouldn’t have allowed him to visit me. What a benighted creature!”4
This latter refers to a letter I wrote Carl after I talked with you on the telephone that Saturday afternoon some time ago, while he was still in the Fulton County Jail; I wrote Carl that you were going to try to visit him and Frank on the following day.5 I don’t know whether you managed to get out there or not, but I learned later that it is very likely that you would have been unable to get in even if you did, as the authorities were not allowing them to have any visitors at all except lawyers.
As you may know Carl is now at a Federal Prison Camp in Greenville, S.C. The situation on visiting may be somewhat better there. Certainly conditions are better. He is not supposed to have visits from anyone but family, but I should think ministers might be an exception. So if you should ever happen to be in the neighborhood of Greenville and have the time, you might want to try to visit him as a minister. I’m sure that a visit from you would be much more of a contribution to his spiritual well-being than a visit from the minister of his own church, who of course can’t get there anyway. The location of the Federal Prison Camp is at the Donaldson Air Force Base which is six miles southwest of Greenville, I understand.
The events in Alabama and Mississippi, while tragic in a way, are thrilling in the new opportunities they offer to those who are working for a new South, and all of you [down?] there are doing a magnificent job of lifting the whole struggle to a new level.6 I myself have been pretty much wrapped up in these developments for the past week or so, doing what I can from a distance to help on getting people down there and getting protests directed to the right people.7 In the process, I’m afraid I like everybody else pretty much forgot about Carl and what needs to be done on that situation. However, I feel that I must now get back to it, as, if anything, the new developments make it even more necessary that we clear away the cobwebs of the witch-hunt. I noticed that the Alabama Legislature has revived the idea of setting up its own Un-American Committee since the Freedom Rides.8 And actually, if you trace the present troubles back to their source, I personally think that the fact that people like Patterson and [strikeout illegible] Connor are in control in Alabama today can be attributed to the fear that the segregationists have been able to create by the red scare back through the years.9 In other words, if it had not been for the debilitating effect of McCarthyism, and the segregationists’ own special use of it, we might have an entirely different element of people running things in Alabama today. As it is, the rebels {liberals} have been rendered impotent for the moment.
So we’ll move ahead with plans to present the petitions to Kennedy. I discussed this on the telephone with Jim Wood the other night and he also agrees we should not delay.10 I will be in touch with Wyatt about it as soon as he is out of jail, and I will probably calling on you for advice from time to time.11
I am enclosing a form letter which I have written to friends I have not had time to write otherwise, which may interest you as it will bring you up-to-date on Carl’s present situation etc.12 I am sending this letter to your home, rather than your office, as I thought that Coretta might also be interested in reading the form letter. Please pass it along to her.
Warm regards,
[signed] Anne
Anne Braden
AB/dj
1. Carl Braden (1914–1975), born in Louisville, Kentucky, was a white journalist and union organizer. In 1948 he married Anne Gambrell McCarty (1924–2006). The couple left their jobs as reporters for Louisville’s daily newspaper and became editors of a local industrial labor union newspaper there for a time. In 1954 the Bradens purchased a home in a white Louisville suburb on behalf of a black family. After the home was dynamited, Kentucky officials arrested the Bradens and five other white leftists who had supported the purchase, and charged them with sedition. Only Carl Braden was tried and convicted after a highly sensationalized trial in 1954; the conviction was overturned in 1956. Unable to secure jobs in Louisville after the controversy, the Bradens became regional organizers for SCEF, and edited its newspaper, Southern Patriot. Upon his release from prison in February 1962, Braden continued his work with SCEF, and served as its co-executive director with Anne from 1967 to 1972. For details about King’s relationship with Anne Braden, see Braden to King, 14 October 1958, in Papers 4:510–511; Braden to King, 23 September 1959, and King to Braden, 7 October 1959, in Papers 5:290–293 and 306–307, respectively.
2. Anne Braden to James A. Dombrowski, 20 April 1961. In early May, King told reporters that his support for Carl Braden was not in defense of communism, but to protest HUAC’s efforts to thwart the integration movement by imprisoning Braden (“Braden’s Term Hit in Pleas to President,” Atlanta Daily World, 3 May 1961).
3. Besides King, nearly 2,000 signed the petition, including Abernathy, Wyatt Tee Walker, James M. Lawson, writer Lillian Smith, and Bishop Edgar Love (Carl Braden Clemency Appeal Committee, Press release, “Statement by Dr. Ralph D. Abernathy, spokesman for the committee,” 17 August 1961). A delegation of southern leaders led by Abernathy presented the petition to White House aides Harris Wofford and Lee White (Carl Braden Clemency Appeal Committee, Press release, “Statement by Ralph D. Abernathy, spokesman for the committee”).
4. Carl Braden to Anne Braden, 18 May 1961. On 6 May 1961 King and Anne Braden had discussed plans for King to visit Carl (Anne Braden to Carl Braden, 10 May 1961).
5. Frank Wilkinson (1914–2006), born in Charlevoix, Michigan, graduated with a B.A. (1936) from the University of California, Los Angeles. Wilkinson was denounced as a communist after trying to build public housing units in Los Angeles. In 1955 and 1958 Wilkinson refused to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee’s subcommittees, and was imprisoned with Carl Braden in 1961. Following his release from prison, Wilkinson remained active in the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation, and served as executive director of the First Amendment Foundation. In 1999 Wilkinson received a lifetime achievement award from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
6. Beginning 4 May 1961, interracial groups of freedom riders from CORE, SNCC, and other groups tested the 1960 Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454, which ruled segregation in interstate travel facilities unconstitutional. Riders encountered mob violence in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama, and were arrested upon arrival in Jackson, Mississippi.
7. After receiving a call from Fred L. Shuttlesworth, Braden attempted to find potential recruits to continue the Freedom Rides, and wrote to Carl that she entertained thoughts of joining the rides herself. She decided not to participate after Carl pointed out that “with three children, one of a family in jail at a time was enough” (Braden to Friend, 1 August 1961; Anne Braden to Carl Braden, 21 May 1961 and 28 May 1961; Carl Braden to Anne Braden, 24 May 1961). On 23 May, Anne Braden spoke at a Detroit gathering to raise funds for the Freedom Rides (Marvel Raskin to Edward B. King, 1 June 1961).
8. On 2 May, Alabama state congressman John Hawkins proposed a bill establishing an un-American activities committee (Bob Ingram, “‘Controversial’ Bill Delayed by Debates,” Montgomery Advertiser, 4 May 1961). After much heated debate, the Alabama House passed a weakened version of the bill on 14 July; however, the Alabama Senate did not discuss the bill before the general session closed in September because other items on the agenda took precedence, particularly redistricting after Alabama lost a federal congressional seat after the 1960 census (Bob Ingram, “Red Probe Group Gets House Okay,” Montgomery Advertiser, 15 July 1961; “Senators Talk Jefferson Carve-Up Bill to Death in Violent Session,” Montgomery Advertiser, 2 September 1961).
9. John Malcolm Patterson was governor of Alabama from 1959 to 1963. Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor served as commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, Alabama, from 1937 to 1953, and from 1957 to 1963.
10. James R. Wood, King’s administrative assistant and SCLC’s director of public relations, helped Braden gather sponsorship for the petition (Anne Braden to Wood and Dombrowski, 27 March 1961).
11. Wyatt Tee Walker was arrested 25 May 1961 for attempting to desegregate a Montgomery, Alabama, lunch counter with freedom riders headed for Jackson, Mississippi. Walker was released on 29 May 1961 (“Yale’s Chaplain among 11 Seized in Montgomery,” New York Times, 26 May 1961; “Drive Pushed Inside Jail, Mixers Say,” Montgomery Advertiser, 30 May 1961).
12. In a May 1961 letter, Braden updated friends on Carl’s imprisonment, noting that his spirits remain high as they usually do “when a person goes to jail for what he feels is a matter of high principle.” She also assured Carl’s supporters that the “positive program” that SCEF has started will continue in Carl’s absence and that the organization’s newsletter the Southern Patriot will continue to “keep our readers well-informed on developments in the integration movement.” On a personal note, Braden reported that she and the couple’s three children are adjusting just “fine” while Carl is in jail (Braden to Friends, May 1961).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.