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Anne Braden was one of those people who was totally dedicated to
abolishing<br>
white supremacy. Her passing is a great loss to the peoples'
movements.<br><br>
Ted Pearson<br><br>
---------- Forwarded Message -----------<br>
From: charlene.mitchell@att.net<br>
To: ncc@lists.cc-ds.org (Committees)<br>
Sent: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:30:45 +0000<br>
Subject: [NCC] (no subject)<br><br>
Dear Folks:<br><br>
I have just learned that Anne Braden died early this morning, Monday
March,<br>
6. 2006.<br><br>
Anne was a very small woman in size but a heroic giant in the civil
rights<br>
movement. Much will be written and spoken about this courageous leader
who<br>
during her more than fifty years was truly a model in the fight
against<br>
racism. There will be an obituary on Portside as soon as it
is available.<br><br>
Personally, Anne was a good friend with whom I often consulted. I loved
her<br>
and will miss her.<br><br>
We will keep you informed about arrangements for a memorial and where to
send<br>
condolences.<br><br>
In sorrow,<br>
Charlene Mitchell<br><br>
</font><font size=5><b>Excerpts from an Interview with Anne Braden <br>
Joining the Other America <br><br>
</b></font><font size=3>I, in various looking around for things to do, I
had become involved somewhat, by meetings I had gone to and things the
Civil Rights Congress was doing. One of the things they were doing was
fighting the many, many cases of terror in the south in that period.
Things that were aimed at African American veterans coming back from
World War II wanting to exercise some of the freedom they thought they
had fought for. There were some bad things happened. Also a number of,
what came to be called "legal lynchings." The old fashioned
kind of lynching was on the decline, although that did happen too. But
courtrooms were lynching people. One of them was a man named Willie McGee
in Mississippi who had been framed, many of us were convinced and I still
am, on a charge of raping a white woman, which was the worst thing you
could be charged with. <br><br>
There was a movement of white women in the thirties called Southern Women
Against Lynching or something. Because this kind of oppression--more than
oppression, it was killing of black men. The excuse for it was to protect
so called "white womanhood." The whole myth of white womanhood
and the part that it played in the south at that time. So these white
women--this was long before my day; I don't think I ever really met any
of them, but I read about them later and began to identify with that
tradition--were white women who said, "Thank you just the same,
we'll protect ourselves. We're tired of being used as an excuse to kill
black men." I mean, that was the message. <br><br>
They were getting ready to electrocute Willie McGee in Mississippi. The
Civil Rights Congress had been carrying on a campaign. It became a
national campaign. They were getting delegations of white women to go to
Mississippi to try to talk to white women in Mississippi to get them to
speak out against what was this great injustice, as a lot of us saw it.
<br><br>
And I went to a meeting and heard one of these women talk who had been on
this delegation. I'd never done anything. I was really not dry behind the
ears. Had just gotten into things, never done anything like this before
in my life and I decided I wanted to go. So I signed up to go. And I went
down to Mississippi on the last delegation on the Willie McGee case on a
weekend. He was executed the following Monday, we were not successful in
stopping that. Our mission was to…not to, it was too late to talk to
other white women in the state. We were to see the governor that day.
Jackson was a garrison state that day. There were state police. There
were rumors that African Americans were coming in from all over the
countryside to protest that day. There had been a lot of organization
there around this case. People were coming. People who had come down from
Memphis, blacks and some whites from Memphis. <br><br>
So there were all these police in the street and we were headed for the
capital and they stopped us, wanting to know where we were going. I said,
"We're going to see the governor." "Oh no, nobody is
seeing the governor of Mississippi today!" We tried to explain that
we were there on an important mission. So they took us into what they
called "protective custody." Took us to jail. And we spent the
day in jail. It was the first time I'd ever been in jail. <br><br>
They were mumbling about all these outsiders coming into Mississippi and
we didn't understand about Mississippi and, you know, just muttering like
people will do in a situation like that. Anyhow, I couldn't stand it any
longer and I said, "Well I don't really think I'm an outsider."
I said, "I was a child in Jackson. First thing I remember is being
in Jackson, Mississippi and Columbus. I grew up in Alabama." And I
said, "But I lived in Mississippi for a number of years and I'm
ashamed of this state today." <br><br>
He got absolutely furious. It's the whole traitor thing. He was so
furious and he said, "And <i>you're</i> in here, and <i>you're</i> a
southerner, and <i>you're</i> on this thing!?" And he turned around
like he was going to hit me, but he didn't because this other cop stopped
him. So he didn't. But all of a sudden that was a very revealing moment
to me. Because all of my life police had been on my side. I didn't think
of it that way but I didn't bother about police and they didn't bother
you, you know, in the world where I grew up. Except maybe if you were
speeding they might stop you, and if you talked to them real nice they
wouldn't give you a ticket. All of a sudden I realized that I was on the
other side. He had said, "You're not a real southern woman."
And I said, "No, I guess I'm not your kind of southern woman."
<br><br>
Very early in that stage I had this letter from a man that I bet you most
of you have not heard of, possibly, named William L. Patterson. He was an
African American, fighter. He headed, at that time, a thing called the
Civil Rights Congress. But he wrote this letter. Number one, and this
isn't the main point, but he told me that I didn't need to be going
around talking at the black churches. That I ought to be talking at the
white churches. That's the first time I heard that message. And I've been
preaching that ever since. <br><br>
But then he said, "You know, you do have a choice. You don't have to
be a part of the world of the lynchers. You can join the other
America." He said, "There is another America." And I'm
paraphrasing a little bit, he said, "It's always been here. Ever
since the first slave ship arrived, and before. The people who struggled
against slavery, the people who rebeled against slavery. The white people
who supported them. The people who all through Reconstruction
struggled." He came on down through history of the people who have
struggled against injustice. The other America. <br><br>
Sometimes people will say just what you need to hear at that point. I was
very young. And that's what I needed to hear. And that's what I felt like
I joined. <br><br>
<br>
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