Black Freedom, White Allies, and Red Scare: Louisville, 1954 debuted as an indoor exhibition from September to November 2014 at the Louisville Free Public Library's Bernheim Gallery. The year 2014 marked the 60th anniversary of the Wade home purchase and Braden sedition trial. Although historical markers in the city acknowledge the Wades and the Bradens, the staff of the University of Louisville's Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research spurred largely by its mission of bridging the gap between research and social action, but also by the release earlier that year of a Fair Housing Action Plan for Louisville Metro was looking for a way to focus more local attention on housing in relation to racial justice. The Louisville Free Public Library was an ideal partner due to its accessibility and the wide cross-section of people its programming reaches. The University of Louisville Libraries and the Courier-Journal newspaper also contributed generously by providing photos, images, and documents

 

 

The first exhibition was timed to coincide with an exact date in the case history Anne and Carl Braden were indicted for sedition on October 1, 1954 and to bring visitors thoughts into the present day with a series of events in the library and at the university that culminated with the annual Anne Braden Memorial Lecture. Staff of the partnering institutions and guests were honored to have descendants of Andrew and Charlotte Wade speak at the exhibit's opening reception. The library later held a screening of the documentary, Anne Braden: Southern Patriot (produced by Appalshop, 2012), and at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, theater students performed Moving forward, living backward, or just standing still?, a community-written one-act play that addresses issues of race, media, and policing to link events of 1954 Louisville with those in Ferguson, MO, in 2014. Portions of Black Freedom, White Allies, and Red Scare were later displayed in January 2015 at the Brandeis School of Law Library, and at The Galt House hotel during the 16th annual White Privilege Conference. In 2015, the Braden Institute received a generous donation to adapt the brick-and-mortar exhibition into a digital exhibit.