History buffs, educators, students and social justice advocates now can access a digital collection highlighting Louisville events linked to the civil rights movement.
The collection is available at the website,聽, which was launched this week by the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research at the University of Louisville and its partners.
The site presents interactive material drawn from the 2014 鈥淏lack Freedom, White Allies, Red Scare: Louisville, 1954鈥 exhibition at the Louisville Free Public Library鈥檚 Main Library.
Materials include archival photos, primary source documents and oral histories about Andrew and Charlotte Wade鈥檚 struggles as African-Americans to buy a new suburban house near what is now Shively. Segregationists used dynamite to blow up the couple鈥檚 home. Anne and Carl Braden, white supporters who had bought the home on the Wades鈥 behalf, were accused of staging the purchase and bombing as part of a communist plot, and were charged with sedition.
鈥淎 dramatic act of housing desegregation led to racial violence and intimidation and culminated with a local version of the anticommunist 鈥楻ed Scare鈥 that swept the nation in those years,鈥 said historian Catherine Fosl, the Anne Braden Institute director who co-curated the exhibit. 鈥淭he case made major national headlines and affected many lives locally but is often neglected in textbooks that cover the Cold War and civil rights eras.鈥
Partners include University of Louisville Libraries鈥 Archives & Special Collections, Louisville Free Public Library, The Courier-Journal and GRIDS: The Grassroots Information Design Studio.
