Marian Edelman, Childwatch
Banned Books Week, which is typically observed the last week of September, brings together the entire book community – including librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all ages – to support the freedom to read. It was first launched in 1982, and its importance is urgently clear today. The nonprofit PEN America’s latest research counted more than 10,000 book bans in the 2023-2024 school year. Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) recently joined a consortium of nonprofits coordinated by PEN America, and We Believe in signing an open letter urging state officials to reject legislation that takes away the right of students, parents, and educators to access age-appropriate books in schools and libraries.
The letter reads in part: “Defending diverse literature means defending those books that teach us, challenge us, entertain us, and introduce us to new ideas . . . It’s no coincidence that most of the books being banned today address issues of race, gender, and sexuality head-on. These books teach kids about age-appropriate topics that affirm their own identities and those of their peers, making them an essential part of a diverse and inclusive school community. Banned books teach us difficult lessons. They lead us to what’s possible. They show us what it means to be better.”
CDF has its own list of “banned books we love” featuring titles from the CDF Freedom Schools Integrated Reading Curriculum, which promotes rich, culturally relevant, and high-quality books for young readers of all ages that have been banned in schools and libraries. Scholars at CDF Freedom Schools sites across the country have marched and spoken out, defending their own freedom to read. This week is a reminder that banning books is a key tactic in the ongoing war against teaching children the truth about our shared history. When Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the son of former slaves, a pioneering Harvard-trained historian, and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, created the precursor to Black History Month in 1926, he did so because he was alarmed how few people, White or Black, knew anything at all about Black people’s achievements. Dr. Woodson believed it was critical to claim our rightful place in the history books and teach future generations about the great thinkers and role models who came before us. As he said, “Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.”
But Dr. Woodson also understood that this was much more than just an academic discussion. He saw the connection between erasing Black history and assaulting Black bodies and said the crusade to teach the truth about Black history was “much more important than the anti-lynching movement because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom. Why not exploit, enslave, or exterminate a class that everybody is taught to regard as inferior?” In his seminal book The Mis-Education of the Negro, Dr. Woodson also explained that providing a standard “miseducation” to young Black children in the school system – “the thought of the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies” – was a calculated and insidious attack: “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”
The connection to this moment remains clear. We must all stay vigilant against every new effort to miseducate our children and our communities and to deny children and young people access to books that help them understand the truth about their own histories and identities and all they have in common with others. We must protect the freedom to read.
