Remembering Anne Braden

Anne Braden, rights activist, left mark on NKU - Her life was 'inspirational'
Kentucky Post (Covington, KY)

Anne Braden, a longtime civil rights activist from Louisville who died Monday at the age of 81, had a longstanding connection to Northern Kentucky University.

Braden became a part-time instructor at NKU in 1997 and for the past 10 years drove once a week from Louisville to teach a class. She was teaching an honors history course this semester.

"As a student, I loved her," said Terry Lewis, an NKU senior from Florence, who received an A in an honors history course, "Social Justice and Civil Rights," that she took from Braden last year.

"She spent her life fighting for a cause, and it was just inspirational. Her entire life was inspirational."

Braden, who was white, and her late husband, Carl, came to prominence in 1954 when they helped a black family buy a home in an all-white neighborhood near Louisville.

After the black family's efforts to purchase the house had been spurned, the Bradens used the family's money to buy the home and then gave the family the deed.

Through the years, the Bradens continued to champion civil rights. After Carl Braden's death in 1975, Anne Braden remained active in civil rights and other causes. The Bradens are enshrined in the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame.

At NKU, Braden insisted that her students call her "Anne."

"She didn't consider herself special," said Lewis. "She was just doing what she believed in."

Braden received an honorary degree from NKU in 1999 and NKU President James Votruba said she will be missed.

"Anne was a force in helping us to think more deeply about the role of the university in advancing justice and opportunity for all," according to Votruba.

"She was in the vanguard of the civil rights movement and repeatedly demonstrated her own courage and commitment as she called both her hometown of Louisville and the nation to a new level of commitment to equal rights and justice for all.

"She was an extraordinary person who contributed so much to NKU through her interaction with our faculty, staff and students. She was, in so many ways, a voice of conscience and an eloquent spokesperson for those values that define America and its promise."

Lewis said Braden "literally spent her life trying to do the right thing."

"If we all had that kind of passion about our cause - whatever our cause is - I think this world would be a better place," said Lewis.

Braden wasn't content to be known as a civil rights pioneer; she wanted to remedy today's injustices, according to Lewis.

"Last spring, right before the Kentucky Derby, someone in our class asked her if she was going to the derby and she said, 'I hope I don't have to go, but if things get out of hand because people aren't treating other people nicely, I will,'" recalled Lewis.

"She didn't want to talk about what she did in 1954.

"She wanted to talk about what she was doing today."