Subversive Southerner, Catherine Fosl
Subversive Southerner, Catherine Fosl
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Subversive Southerner
Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South

Author: Catherine Fosl, Angela Y. Davis

Narrator: Sara Morsey

Unabridged: 19 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Sara Morsey

Published: 01/26/2016

Synopsis

Anne McCarty Braden (1924–2006) rejected her segregationist, privileged past to become one of the civil rights movement’s staunchest white allies.In 1954 she was charged with sedition by McCarthyist politicians who played on fears of communism to preserve southern segregation. Though Braden remained controversial―even within the civil rights movement―in 1963 she became one of only five white southerners whose contributions to the movement were commended by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in his famed “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Braden’s activism ultimately spanned nearly six decades, making her one of the most enduring white voices against racism in modern US history.Subversive Southerner is more than a riveting biography of an extraordinary southern white woman; it is also a social history of how racism, sexism, and anticommunism intertwined in the twentieth-century South as ripples from the Cold War divided the emerging civil rights movement.

About Catherine Fosl

Catherine Fosl is an assistant professor of women’s and gender studies and the founding director of the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research at the University of Louisville. She is the author of several works, including Subversive Southerner, Freedom on the Border, and Women for All Seasons.

About Angela Y. Davis

Angela Y. Davis is a political activist, scholar, author, and speaker. She is an outspoken advocate for the oppressed and exploited, writing on Black liberation, prison abolition, the intersections of race, gender, and class, and international solidarity with Palestine. She is the author of several books, including Women, Race, and Class and Are Prisons Obsolete? She is the subject of the acclaimed documentary Free Angela and All Political Prisoners and is Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Davis is the recipient of the 2020 Cultural Freedom Prize from Lannan Foundation.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sara on August 05, 2015

This has long been one of my favorite biographies. Growing up in Louisville, KY where Anne Braden was a legend or a notorious character, depending on who was speaking of her, her story has always intrigued me. My first visit to The Civil Rights Museum in Memphis revealed to me that she was a major p......more

Goodreads review by Mare on November 28, 2017

i knew Anne Braden was a badass, but... DAMN. ANNE BRADEN WAS A BADASS. Like how did you hang out with all my heroes? and then lesser heroes warned them not to hang out with you because you were too radical? but then they did anyway? and how did you understand intersectional feminism and the necessity......more

Goodreads review by Andy on February 09, 2025

I have a feeling I'm going to be buying a lot of copies of this book for my friends.......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on May 12, 2019

This is a valuable book in that it thoroughly educates about an underappreciated 20th century racial justice activist. It is otherwise rather tedious and disorganized, especially in how Fosl seems to repeat or rephrase events several times at several different places. But the value it offers ultimat......more

Goodreads review by DH on October 30, 2019

Fosl's bio of Anne Braden provides a unique and vital analysis of the southern civil rights movement through the experience of a white radical. Fosl ably employs her oral history interviews with Braden to enliven the story of the transition from the left labor radicalism of the 30s and 40s through t......more

Quotes

“Anne Braden was one of the courageous few who crossed the color line to fight for racial justice. Her history is a proud and fascinating one…Please read this book.” Jesse L. Jackson, American civil-rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician

“Laying out the inescapable interconnection of civil rights and civil liberties is Fosl’s most impressive accomplishment.” New York Times Book Review

“An excellent and inspiring read.” Progressive

“An achievement that deftly integrates biography with both regional and national history.” Southern Historian

“A compelling picture of a person committed to the cause of racial justice.” Nashville Tennessean

“Now, Fosl…gives Braden the recognition she rightly deserves. Recommended.” Choice magazine (Australia)

“Fosl conveys the bravery and uncompromising convictions that made Anne Braden an important figure.” Library Journal

“Narrator Sara Morsey’s conversational style is ideal for this biography…Morsey uses a Southern accent only for quotes from such such figures as civil-rights leader Julian Bond and colorful Alabama governor and activist Big Jim Folsom…A glimpse of Braden’s family life adds poignancy to Fosi’s well-researched biography.” AudioFile

“Among the very best of the feminist biographies that have changed the way women imagine—and live—their lives.” Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, American historian and University of North Carolina professor

Awards

  • Oral History Association Book Award
  • Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights Outstanding Book Award
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