Anne Braden
Anne Braden is probably best known for something that happened in 1954. The Wade family asked the Bradens for help. Andrew Wade was an African American who wanted to buy a house in white suburban Louisville, Kentucky. Because of Jim Crow housing practices, the Wades had been unsuccessful for months to buy a home on their own. The Bradens agreed to buy the house and resell it to the Wades. On May 15, 1954, Andrew Wade and his wife Charlotte spent their first night in their new home. When white neighbors discovered that black people had moved in, they burned a cross in front of the house. They shot out windows. A few days later, a stone was thrown through a window. The milkman would not deliver milk. Someone cancelled their newspaper subscription. White friends began staying in the house to guard against further violence. After a few weeks, the incidents quieted down. However, just after midnight on June 27, 1954 a bomb went off in the house. It was under the room the Wade's two-year-old daughter slept in. Nobody was home at the time.