LANEY HAWES
Texas Freedom to Read Project
“The First Amendment is a big deal in a functioning democracy, so the attack on the freedom to read could be the downfall of our country,” says Laney Hawes, codirector of the Texas Freedom to Read Project.
Hawes, a Fort Worth resident, cofounded TFRP in December 2023 with Frank Strong and Anne Russey, who live in Austin and Houston, respectively. They’d met on social media, Hawes says, and were overwhelmed by the “money coming in from all directions” from conservative PACs and unidentified sources to support Moms for Liberty and other extremist groups. They were also daunted by the size of the Lone Star State, where “we have more than 1,200 school districts.”
They developed TFRP to train and mobilize fellow parents and community members against censorship. “We’re filing hundreds of public information requests and attending school board meetings, library meetings, the state legislature—that’s what it looks like on the ground,” Hawes says. She notes that TFRP operates in an area with “a culture that looks a lot different than Northern states.” And while the organization supports parental rights and inclusive reading, “that won’t necessarily fly down here,” unless an organization builds community trust.
Hawes describes Texas legislation around reading material as generally “weak, confusing, and written to score political points. The way it’s implemented across the state varies.” TFRP works with lawyers, publishers, and organizations such as the ACLU “to empower Texans to push back,” she says, whether that means finding a pro bono attorney to help write an amicus brief or contacting Penguin Random House—a frequent TFRP correspondent—about state-level issues.
She takes particular umbrage with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent reversal of a district court’s preliminary injunction in Little v. Llano County, a case involving book removals in which the conservative majority mocked “the unusually over-caffeinated arguments” made by anti-censorship advocates. Referring to herself, Hawes says, “This is who the Fifth Circuit is harassing: a mom of four with a Diet Coke in her hand, doing this while her kids are at school. This fight is everyone’s—it belongs to every individual American.”
AZEEMAH SADIQ
Students Engaged in Advancing Texas
Azeemah Sadiq, a 17-year-old senior policy associate with the education justice group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, comes from Alief, a suburb of Houston. “Alief is a historically marginalized, underrepresented community, and that’s trickled into how we get funded,” Sadiq says. “We’re known for low civic engagement, because we don’t have the resources. I want to correct that narrative.”
SEAT is a youth-driven 501(c)(3) nonprofit meant to give teenagers a seat in governance. Sadiq says during the organization’s annual advocacy day in Austin, the state capital, “I spoke about how book banning silences students and limits their access to diverse literature. We’re choosing to under-educate an entire generation. Without diverse literature, we’re creating narrow-minded students. Book banning leaves students unprepared to engage with the real world.”
Young people want to combat the “alarming trend” of book removals, Sadiq says, but they might not know where to start, so SEAT plans to train 27 school equity fellows from all over Texas for anti-censorship projects in their communities. In June, SEAT and the ACLU of Texas announced they would challenge Texas SB 12 in court, arguing that its restrictions on race- and gender-inclusive school programming are unconstitutional.
Sadiq has her eye on college applications, too. “My plan is to major in political science or public policy, and minor in philosophy on a pre-law track,” she says, her sights set on transformation.
LINDSAY SCHULTZ
The Spine Bookshop and Banned Book Brigade
“If you’d told me a year ago that I was going to be an advocate, I would have laughed,” says bookseller Lindsay Schultz. In 2024, Schultz was opening the Spine Bookshop in Smyrna, Tenn., specializing in independently published titles. Then a friend at the Rutherford County Library Alliance asked for her support at a school board meeting where heated discussions seemed sure to break out about book selection criteria and librarians’ expertise. Schultz attended, and emerged a right-to-read warrior.
Schultz knew books about diverse identities were controversial under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act, which regulates K–12 library collections. “But these school board meetings are unhinged,” she says. “Most of what’s being removed covers LGBTQIA+ issues; mental health; sexual assault; African American, Hispanic, and Asian authors—basically anything that’s not the narrative of white Christian nationalism.”
Later, when the school board assigned librarians to write justifications for more than 140 challenged books, Schultz wanted the other side of the story. “I read all the reports, because they’re in the public record,” she says, and although the media specialists found that all the books passed the anti-obscenity Miller test, the board kept titles off shelves anyway.
Angered by Rutherford County’s disregard for librarians and young readers, Schultz used Spine’s website to post a list of books banned in Rutherford County. She launched the Banned Book Brigade, where friends of the store can donate a banned book or fund a book purchase. She now offers a shelf of free material. Already a podcaster, she envisions making a documentary film and multimedia performance to reinforce the necessity of diverse stories.
“I believe in a higher power,” she says, “and it offends me that people take this notion of Christian love and try to erase people that they find offensive from our history books.”
STEPHANA FERRELL
Florida Freedom to Read Project
A founding member of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, Stephana Ferrell draws connections between book banning and radical education reform, a movement to supply parents with school vouchers for private education that is undermining the budgets and missions of American public schools.
Conservative groups, she says, “use books to build distrust in public education. You have one set of parents convinced you can’t trust educators to pick materials, and you have another set of parents enticed by school vouchers.” Either way, she concludes, “as long as you throw your money into for-profit education, that will tear apart our public schools.”
Ferrell began coordinating an anti-censorship network of Florida parents during the 2021–2022 school year, and together they launched FFRP as a watchdog organization. “We called it a project, thinking it would be a short amount of time,” she says. FFRP found special interest groups influencing school boards and hollowing out library collections. At first, Ferrell says, districts would “create punitive rules and scare media specialists into overcompliance. Now we have state officials ordering books off the shelf without a vote from the State Board of Education.”
FFRP has notched notable successes, such as lobbying to kill Florida’s Materials Harmful to Minors bill, a bid to reinforce so-called parental rights to control classroom materials. “It did pass the House, but the Senate had already tabled HB 1692,” a similar proposal that died in committee, Ferrell says. FFRP fully anticipates more of the same in upcoming legislative sessions.
“The right to access a high-quality, free public education is in our state constitution,” Ferrell says, “and it’s very much under attack.”
ANGIE HAYDEN
Read Freely Alabama
Alabama is deep red on the U.S. map, a state where GOP chairman John Wahl also heads the Alabama Library Service Board and recently promised to root out “gender ideology” in collections. Meanwhile, extremist groups Eagle Forum, Clean Up Alabama, and Moms for Liberty monitor and frighten librarians serving tiny towns.
Two years ago, Angie Hayden of Prattville, Ala., learned that a member of right-wing group Clean Up Prattville was headed to the city council to talk about her hometown library and LGBTQ+ children’s titles, including Chris Ayala-Kronos’s The Pronoun Book. “I decided to go too,” Hayden says, and after that she began speaking out for libraries at council meetings.
When Alabama residents Amber Frey, Jessica Hayes, Sam Olson, and Krysti Shallenberger heard about Hayden’s public appearances, they met to form RFA. “I didn’t know I was supposed to be organizing,” Hayden says. “Now we have over 3,000 people statewide and chapters scattered across the state.”
They have plenty of work ahead. In May 2024, they joined the Alabama Library Association, students, and parents to file Read Freely Alabama v. Autauga-Prattville Public Library Board of Trustees, arguing that book selection criteria and policies for library cards for minors are overbroad and discriminatory. In the state legislature, anti-obscenity HB 4—which calls for the jailing of librarians—is expected to re-emerge, and SB 6, which allows the removal of library board members, is listed on the calendar as “indefinitely postponed” but alive.
“The one thing about extremists is they show up,” Hayden says. But RFA does, too. “Perhaps I am just too stubborn. I intend to keep at it for as long as it takes.”
KATE SELVITELLI
Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization
Kate Selvitelli, 17, is founder and president of a chapter of Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization at her Charleston, S.C., high school. DAYLO, founded in 2021, is affiliated with the Right to Read Network of the National Coalition Against Censorship, and youth leaders like Selvitelli initiate conversations with everyone from school principals to political candidates.
Advocacy is essential in South Carolina, which is home to one of the nation’s strictest book-banning laws. Regulation 43-170, which broadly prohibits public school materials with “sexual content” and facilitates the removal of titles, went into effect in June 2024.
When pushing back against such restrictions, Selvitelli depends on strong community ties, she says. “We have people from our churches, and multiple schools with DAYLO chapters.” Through that network, she gets to know public policymakers. She’s met with South Carolina congressional candidate Mac Deford, and she’s stumping for Sylvia Wright, who’s running to become the state board of education superintendent in 2026.
“I’ve had sit-down meetings one-on-one with members of the school board,” Selvitelli says, noting that she had lunch with her school’s superintendent to discuss Regulation 43-170. She’s given talks at the New Voices New Rooms bookselling trade show and the American Library Association’s annual conference. “Also, every time I’m doing a community event, I invite every single school board member,” she says, “because when we have kids speaking, adults are more apt to listen.”
BREA PARKER
Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization
In 2024, director Kate Way’s documentary Banned Together detailed anti-censorship advocacy among students in Beaufort County, S.C. Now that the activists from that film have graduated, others have stepped up, including 17-year-old senior Brea Parker.
As VP of her school’s DAYLO chapter, Parker prefers networking with school board members, teachers, and community members who have read the books being challenged in K–12 schools. She recruits classmates to join the fight, and she finds that they respond positively to Teddy Bear Picnics—friendly events where older students read with younger children and give away donated books.
DAYLO supports teen book clubs, too. Parker’s club chooses themes, reading Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H-Mart to amplify Asian American and Pacific Islander identities and Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes in the wake of school shootings. DAYLO’s work with Picoult, Parker says, led to a collaboration with March for Our Lives, the national gun reform organization.
Activism even has its social perks, as when Parker spoke about the freedom to read at New Voices New Rooms. “I got to meet my heroes, Angie Thomas and Nic Stone,” Parker says. “They were so encouraging, saying, ‘Thank you for fighting for my book.’ I was like, I would love to fight for your book. You’re my favorite person ever!”
SARA HAYDEN PARRIS
Annie’s Foundation
“In Iowa, the book bans are driven by Moms for Liberty—they’re calling all the shots,” says Sara Hayden Parris of 501(c)(3) nonprofit Annie’s Foundation in Johnston. “At first we were hesitant to call them out, but we realized we have to go after them directly to get interaction on social media.”
The volunteer-led Annie’s Foundation battles censorship legislation such as Iowa’s SF 496, which has pulled hundreds of public school library books from shelves and is included in the Penguin Random House v. Robbins lawsuit. “SF 496 went into effect in June 2023, and no one knew what to expect because school was out,” Parris says, but whistleblowers told Annie’s Foundation that Urbandale Community School District had a list of 400 books slated for removal. “We blasted it out to the community, and Urbandale had to pare down the list,” Parris says. “We’re proud of having exposed that.”
Donations to Annie’s Foundation enable book giveaways statewide. “In under three years, we’ve given out almost 18,000 books, all banned or challenged somewhere in the U.S.,” Parris says. Recently, when Christian nationalist organization Brave Books held “See You at the Library” events around Des Moines, the foundation showed up with free books to raise awareness. “They have a right to be in the library, but we don’t have to like it,” Parris says.
Right now, Parris is watching Iowa HF 802, a new law said to target critical race theory in classrooms, along with anti-library bills introduced for the next legislative session. “Bad bills have a habit of coming back to life,” Parris says, promising Annie’s Foundation will be there to meet them.
MACKENZIE NICHOLSON
MomsRising New Hampshire
On July 15, national media covered New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayotte’s veto of a book-banning law. HB 324 aimed to prohibit “obscene or harmful sexual materials in schools” and discipline educators who failed to restrict damaging content, and Ayotte went against her Republican party members with her veto.
MacKenzie Nicholson, senior director of MomsRising New Hampshire, cheers Ayotte’s decision. But she cautions that it came only through “continued coordinated efforts” by MRNH, the ACLU of New Hampshire, Black Lives Matter NH, and EveryLibrary. “MomsRising is a national organization, but we don’t live in library world all the time,” Nicholson says. “We worked on a poll through the University of New Hampshire to gauge how people feel about censorship.” The organization also held a June read-in at the state house in Concord, bringing supporters from remote corners of the rural state.
Nicholson places the victory in the context of a rightward shift. “Leading up to that veto, we had never seen a book ban pass through a body, and this year it passed through both the Senate and the House,” she says. MRNH is now tracking SB 33, legislation targeting “harmful or age-inappropriate” school materials, which needs to be acted on by November 21. “Will they try to override the original HB 324 veto?” Nicholson asks. “Do we need proactive legislation that protects your freedom to read?”
“Granite State people don’t want to be told what their freedoms are,” Nicholson adds, citing the state’s famous motto: Live Free or Die. Yet she sees New Hampshire as “a parental rights testing ground.” As a community organizer, she doesn’t let her guard down: “If we’re not vigilant, we are in big trouble.”
JOHN NORCROSS
Community organizer
John Norcross of Oconomowoc, Wisc., is an organizational change consultant and a parent. He began attending local school board meetings “to dust off my activism politically,” he says. Alerted to book bans, restrictions on teaching critical race theory, and partisan changes to curricula in local schools, he became a community organizer, tracking the influence of censorship groups and urging First Amendment advocates to seek office.
“I started to notice patterns, the same people showing up, the process of aligning school board races with up-ballot races,” Norcross says. “Once the school boards were taken over, they moved straight into waging culture wars on books, teachers, and vulnerable groups like the LGBTQ community.”
In 2021, controversy ignited around Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?, Sarah Savage and Fox Fisher’s picture book on gender identity.
And in 2023, Republicans proposed that parents had the right to know which books their kids borrowed from school libraries. Presently, Norcross says, parents must opt in for their high school students to read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, and the GOP-led school board in July questioned James M. Henslin’s Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach for its critical readings of climate change and wealth inequality.
“Censors continually test the boundaries, whether in policy, rhetoric, or outright bans,” Norcross says. He likes to run a practical counteroffensive by collecting data to rebut inaccuracies and urging fellow advocates to volunteer or stand for election.
“You’ve got to get a literal seat at the table. I think of a yin and yang, changing the discourse and changing power.”
