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There’s no better time than October, National Book Month, to highlight the Black women fighting for our rights to read, write and consume literature.
PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for literary access, notes that books by non-white, LGBTQ+ or female authors have been increasingly under attack and subjected to bans. Other highly scrutinized literary titles are those about “racism, sexuality, gender and history.”
The nonprofit’s records from July 2022 to June 2023 documented a 33% increase in book bans in public school classrooms and libraries in comparison to the previous school year. In addition to book bans being fueled by worries of “sexually explicit” and “age inappropriate” material, PEN America’s analysis reported that literary prohibitions “overwhelmingly” targeted books about race or racism and those with LGBTQ+ and/or characters of color.
The organization starkly emphasized that those bans “removed students’ access to 1,557 unique book titles [and] the works of over 1,480 authors, illustrators, and translators” — many of whom are or have been marginalized.
This October marks National Book Month’s 20th anniversary. According to National Today, the month-long observance was first established by the National Book Foundation in 2003. Notably, Banned Books Week ran from Oct. 1 through Oct. 7.
Read about seven Black women or Black women-led organizations doing the work and using their voices to eradicate book bans below.
Katrina Brooks — Black Pearl Books
Brooks owns Black Pearl Books in Austin, Texas, — the only Black-owned bookstore in the city. She passionately fights against book bans through her small retailer and her advocacy.
Put It in A Book, the charitable nonprofit attached to her bookstore, was established in 2021 “to promote diversity, inclusion and representation through literature.” The nonprofit’s current initiative, Right To Read, works to make banned or challenged books available to kids. The 501 (c)(3) organization also offers a “Redacted Reads Book Club” at local schools and partners with other community organizations to help make books as accessible as possible.
The Change.org petition Brooks started in April 2023 fights against pending state legislation HB 900, which would require booksellers to implement ratings set by the State Board of Education based on a book’s “sexually explicit” or “sexually relevant” material. It has the possibility to greatly impact what and how much is accessible to students in school libraries.
Nekima Levy Armstrong — Moms For Liberation
Source: Courtesy of / Moms For Liberation
Armstrong is a civil rights attorney and activist who founded Moms for Liberation, an offshoot of the Wayfinder Foundation. Her organization targets discriminatory practices in education and advocates for Black voices and storytelling.
Moms For Liberation aims to challenge systemic racism and oppression caused by book bans and issues in broader education. With that mission, Armstong hopes Black people will someday experience “true emancipation.”
Round Rock Black Parents Association
This Black women-led organization is dedicated to unifying, mobilizing and uplifting Black parents and students in Round Rock, Texas. An example of its advocacy was its traction in 2021 toward reversing a planned ban on the young adult-targeted book, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. Ultimately, the book was removed from ban consideration in Round Rock’s school district.
“Taking away that book would have completely whitewashed history, and that’s not what we are for,” Ashley Walker, a member of the organization, told NBC News upon reflecting on the parents association’s victory.
Ruby Bridges
Bridges is a civil rights activist who’s been contributing to the advancement of Black people through education since she was 6 years old and became the first Black child to integrate an elementary school in New Orleans, Louisiana, in November 1960.
The 69-year-old now hosts the Ruby Bridges Reading Festival annually with the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Shortly after this year’s celebration, she opened up about her first children’s book — 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School — being targeted.
“There was a time when we as African Americans couldn’t be caught with a book, or couldn’t let people know we knew how to read,” Bridges told Chalkbeat Tennessee in May 2023. “But we’ve come a long way from that, and it seems like we could be heading in that direction again if books are being banned.”
“Once my books are pulled down, you probably should expect that a lot more would follow. But if you’re banning my books because they’re too truthful, then why don’t we start having a conversation about the books that we force our young people to study, like the textbooks we know omit so much of the truth?”
Kamuri Spears — Underground Books
Kamuri Spears — Underground Books
As a manager at Underground Books in Sacramento, California, Spears recently used her voice to speak about book bans from a bookseller’s perspective.
In an October 2023 piece for the Sacramento Bee, Spears emphasized that many of the books frequently featured on banned book lists are “foundational” reading — such as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and Native Son by Richard Wright.
“We tell people, these are the books you’ll want to read because they don’t want you to read them,” Spears noted.
“The list [of banned books] is growing every day. That’s scary,” Spears added. “This is our real life. We can’t make this stuff up. This bars people who are pouring their hearts into their stories and their truth. If we don’t stop fighting, we’ll never be able to see those books.”
Alex Brown
Source: Courtesy of / Henrik Meng
Brown is a queer librarian, author, historian and book critic who fiercely believes that representation for all is deserved in schools and libraries.
In a March 2022 article for Tor.com, they outlined six steps for stopping or navigating book bans and censorship.
In the text, they additionally noted:
“Banning books is always bigger than just the ban or just the book. It’s a concerted effort to whitewash and sugarcoat history, to deny the truth of what happened and who we are as a nation, and to continue the dismantling of our public educational institutions. This current surge is not a grassroots movement of individual parents wanting to protect their children. No, for the most part these are extremely well-funded, politically connected, and highly coordinated conservative groups determined to dominate and oppress.”
Amanda Gorman
The inspiring young poet made headlines earlier this year for her efforts to increase awareness around the rise of book bans and the censorship of queer and non-white voices. When she spoke out on the issue, she claimed that the book version of her inaugural poem, The Hill We Climb, was made difficult or impossible for young readers to access at a K-8 school in Miami-Dade County. In March 2023, a parent filed a complaint that wrongly listed the poem’s author as Oprah Winfrey and claimed that The Hill We Climb would confuse and “indoctrinate students.”
In a post shared on Instagram May 23, Gorman said, “Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.”
On the specific topic of race-related and LGBTQ+ titles being targeted by the ban, the poet told CBS News the following:
“I have to think about what messaging that sends to young readers. It’s as if you’re saying, ‘You are inappropriate if you’re African American. You are inappropriate if you are gay. You are inappropriate if you are an immigrant.’
And there’s this huge argument that it’s about protecting and sheltering our children from ideas that are just too advanced for them, but when you look at the majority of the books that have actually been banned, it’s more about creating a bookshelf that doesn’t represent the diverse facets of America.”
The school at the center of the controversy, Bob Graham Education Center, reportedly later denied that it banned the poem. In a statement to CBS News, the school claimed the book was moved to a section for middle schoolers.
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