Sarah Jane Brady was a prominent advocate for gun control in the United States.
Background
She was born Sarah Jane Kemp in Kirksville, Missouri to L. Stanley Kemp, a high school teacher and later Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, and Frances (née Stufflebean) Kemp, a former teacher and homemaker. On December 29, 1978, their only child, James "Scott" Brady Junior., was born.
Education
She was raised in Alexandria, Virginia, where she graduated from Francis C. Hammond High School in 1959. She graduated from the College of William & Mary in 1964.
Career
Her husband, James Brady, was press secretary to United States. president Ronald Reagan. She had a younger brother, Bill. From 1964 to 1968 she was a public school teacher in Virginia.
From 1968 to 1970 she worked as assistant to the campaign director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
She then worked as an administrative aide, first for Mike McKevitt (R-Colorado) and then for Joseph J. Maraziti (R-New Jersey). From 1974 to 1978, she worked as director of administration and coordinator of field services for the Republican National Committee.
Her husband sustained a permanently disabling head wound during the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, which occurred on March 30, 1981. James Brady remained as Press Secretary for the remainder of Reagan"s administration, primarily in a titular role.
They later became active in the lobbying organization Handgun Control, Incorporated. that would eventually be renamed the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
She was chairwoman of the Brady Campaign from 2000 until her death in 2015. Sarah Brady died at the age of 73 on April 3, 2015, in Alexandria, Virginia, from pneumonia. Her husband James had died at the same age in the previous year, on August 4, 2014.
Achievements
Connections
Married James Brady, 1973. 1 child, James Brady Junior.