Original subtitles

This programme contains very strong language

I never imagined what's happening right now could ever happen.

It didn't dawn on us that we would come under attack.

Do you like people?

Have you a real love of books and learning?

You may well consider the vocation of a librarian.

We just...

..never imagined we would be in the forefront.

We're not supposed to necessarily be seen and felt.

We're stewards of the space, stewards of the resources.

We're the stewards for the people.

Now I think we've moved into the vanguard.

We have to be out in front telling the story.

It's about us.

Texas Republicans are launching an investigation

into what types of books school districts have,

specifically ones that pertain to race and sexuality.

In a letter to the Texas Education Agency,

lawmakers pointed to Texas districts that recently removed books

from classrooms after parent complaints.

Republican State Representative Matt Krause of Fort Worth

sent this list of 850 books

to a number of public school districts.

There is no information on who helped Representative Krause

compile the list.

We were right there in the crosshairs of this rising call,

so we felt like everything that we did was being watched.

It's not just 850 books which we've all fixated on.

He says and "any other books".

I'm just immediately angry because it's so obvious

that he is targeting LGBTQ titles and authors of colour,

and books about race, and books about sex education.

He is asking districts to remove these and any other books

that might embarrass or shame someone...

..due to sex or race.

What struck me was, one, there was a list of 850 books.

He wanted to know if school districts had them,

how much money had been spent on them.

- REPORTER: - The list includes titles like a book on the history

of the KKK, and another about desegregation in schools.

There are also books about gender identity,

the LGBTQ+ community and the history of Roe v Wade.

I didn't even think,

you know, most school districts would entertain this.

I remember looking at it, thinking...

..they're singling us out again.

A couple of days later, our governor doubled down

and sent a letter to the Texas Association of School Boards

asking them to do something about "pornography" in our libraries.

I'm calling for the immediate removal

of this very graphic, pornographic material

from our libraries and our schools, and want to establish standards

so that parents have the assurance that their children

will not be exposed to it.

I remember seeing Governor Abbott's letter

and my district was mentioned specifically.

That was the first moment that I realised school librarians

could be criminalised for selecting books

and making them available on the shelf.

All books, Ulysses.

- I wonder what they say in all those books. - Are they saying...

Politicians are playing a very dangerous game

when they try to make school libraries

battlegrounds for their political war,

because the only people that that is going to hurt are our kids.

This space, these resources,

that are supposed to be this magical entry point to...

..the world, to stories, to ideas.

There it is.

See it?

Something they're seeing in there.

What is it, Lionel?

There's an A. Yep, that's an A right there.

I sure would like to know what they're saying in there, though.

Every letter is different from...

Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are at Granbury High School.

You know, it's always exciting, the first day of school.

kids are dressed up, parents are excited,

especially new moms and dads taking that walk for the first time

with those five-year-olds into kindergarten. It's a great feeling.

And when they come to me, I...

I need to have a conversation with you.

We were called into a meeting and told

anything that is sexually explicit that could meet the penal code,

you are responsible for in your library.

And I pepped up, I said, "Just the Krause list?",

and got the evil eye.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in that meeting going through our

catalogues and trying to figure out what we have and what we don't have.

I was sitting in the library reading, and these men

came in with this big cart, and they went up to librarians

and they started saying, "Where are the books?

"We need to get these things out of here."

We were just told, "Get rid of them. Get rid of them.

"Deal with it. Get rid of them."

Getting them off the shelves, putting them on carts,

putting them wherever,

going through books and just chucking them.

They had no room downtown.

The offices were full of books.

The high school was full of books.

When you have to go through 10,000 books,

what are you going to do?

To me, as a librarian, that was trauma.

I went to the campus of a librarian I particularly feared for

and she took me into a closet.

Was very careful to let me know, "What I'm about to show you

"is behind three locks, so I feel like it's safe."

The librarian unlocks each of those and we get to the cabinets

and open the cabinets.

It's shelves and shelves of books.

Harmless books.

I just started putting them on the carts and I said, "No."

Every book that was on that shelf felt like a student

that we were saying, "We've got to put you behind three locks.

"We've got to hide you back here in the dark."

Now we'll come to order.

Mr Reed Harris, you wrote a book, and at the time you wrote this book,

did you feel that marriage should be cast out

of our civilisation as antiquated and stupid religious phenomena?

You put an implication on it and you feature this particular point

out of the book, which of course is quite out of context,

does not give a proper impression of the book as a whole.

The American public doesn't get an honest impression of even that book.

Well, then, let's continue to read your own writing.

If we would go back in history to McCarthyism,

it felt like that happened to them,

it wouldn't happen to us, it wouldn't happen now.

Our hearts swell with pride...

..because those who went before you worked...

..to give to us today standing here...

..this pride.

Don't join the book burners.

Don't think you're going to conceal faults

by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book.

We do have a code of ethics...

..around intellectual freedom...

..around privacy, around representation

and access to information

and a diversity of perspectives and issues.

Those are all part of our code.

I couldn't remove a book because it has ideas we don't like.

Can't we look at this from a practical point of view?

Take my word for it, it's not unreasonable

to ask you to take out just this one book.

If you can control the library, you can control the community

because if you can control the flow of information,

if you can control the ideas, you've got it. You've got everything.

Of course you're coming after school librarians first.

Of course you are.

That was my office.

Erm, where is it?

These are two books that I was asked to be removed

and I would not remove them.

Now, they asked us to put these behind the counter

so that they weren't available unless you knew they were here.

Now they've separated all of the pluses from the regular books.

The LGBTQ books.

They were all integrated before, but now they have separated them.

But also, we went out of our way to get Christian books

just for this group, when they started making problems,

so we got two series down here just so that their children,

who were more Christian-based, could have their books, too.

I have to show you our children's library.

You know, that's where our porn lives!

SHE LAUGHS

A Day In The Life Of Marlon Bundo. Have you seen that one?

It's a story about a bunny rabbit.

He meets another male bunny.

So, the bunnies end up getting married.

They don't know that's here.

Because they're just looking on their list.

So, yes, there are books here

that they may not like, but they're here.

This is the actual rules of the Llano County Library.

"In no case should any book be excluded

"because of race or nationality,

"or the political or religious views of the writer."

I followed these rules and I got fired for it.

That's me when I was in the US Army.

When we take our oath to protect the country, it doesn't stop there.

You protect the Constitution of the United States

from attacks, both external and internal.

Did you know this book existed?

Everybody's afraid to say what these people are acting like,

but if you read history, you know what they are acting like.

It says, "No to decadence and moral corruption,

"yes to decency and morality and family and state.

"You do well to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past.

"This is a strong, great and symbolic deed."

A lot of the books that he burned were not just the Jewish authors,

they were the LGBTQ+.

They were those authors that they burned.

Start throwing it in there! Start throwing it in there!

Start throwing it in there! Start throwing it in there!

Burn it! Burn it! Burn it!

HORN BLARES

- Hallelujah! - Woo!

- ALL: - I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas,

one state under God,

one and indivisible.

I do want to clarify a couple of points on behalf of the district.

As you know,

Texas education is the responsibility of the state,

which essentially makes Governor Abbott our CEO.

I want to start this out simple.

The job of the Superintendent and the school board

is to not only protect the students in this district,

but to make them feel like they have a place in this community.

But I've got to tell you, from what I've seen so far,

you are failing at your job.

DOORBELL

Hiya, guys. Come on in.

We've all read Fahrenheit our freshman year,

and we talk about the scariness of book banning.

Literally on the windows of our library,

our library has a big windowed wall, there are freshman students'

drawings about Fahrenheit 451.

Look, these are all novels...

..all about people that never existed.

The people that read them, it makes them unhappy with their own lives,

makes them want to live in other ways that can never really be.

So we must burn the books, Montag.

All the books.

And seeing that and knowing what is going on within that library,

it feels like...

It's blatant that there's a facade here.

We have books in the library that are pretty heavy

and have sexual assault, like A Clockwork Orange, even,

and that wasn't pulled, so...

Had I not picked this book up,

I don't think I would be sitting here now.

If it's a cis, straight, white male or female, well, it's no issue,

but as soon as you've got any kind of diversity, red flag.

A gay person, a brown person, cut it out.

LAUGHTER

Yeah.

An analysis of the 850-book list

form the following likely reasons for inclusion.

60% because of LGBTQ+.

8% because of race and racism.

13% because of sexual education -

something that is not taught in all Texas schools.

Stop the censorship in our district.

Wake up to the reality that we are all different

and we should all embrace each other with love, not blatant hate.

I'm simply going to say that no government, and public school

is an extension of government, has ever banned books

and banned information from its public,

and been remembered in history as the good guys.

Let's not misrepresent things. We're not taking Shakespeare

or Hemingway off the shelves, and we're not going and grabbing

every socially, culturally or religiously diverse book

and pulling them. That's absurd.

And the people that are saying that are gaslighters,

and it's designed to incite division.

Can you help me?

I might need somebody else to help me. I need to pass these out.

Maybe somebody else to help Karen.

You can give them to the board. Definitely she needs help.

I've brought you some excerpts of books.

I pray you really are able to stop this kind of content

from going in this school.

These people put sexually explicit content into your libraries.

Get ready for truth and transparency from an ocean of liberal tears.

Let's talk about Superintendent Dr Jeremy Glenn

and the smut and porn in the library books.

And it's not just his position. It's the position of the school board,

it's the position of this community at large.

Bottom line, this is about removing pornographic,

sexually explicit and vulgar materials from school libraries.

I want you to know this. Tonight I'm going to go home

and I'm going to get a great night's sleep because, unlike you,

I've actually read what's in those books,

and I'm proud that they've been removed from our shelves

and we've made the right decision for kids.

APPLAUSE

I taught for about five years.

I've taught in a private school setting,

and I've taught sixth grade social studies,

I've taught third grade general education,

so all the core classes.

My concern was that there might have been stuff

that they just didn't know was there,

that they just weren't aware, because they didn't know...

They didn't know where to look.

And, at first, I didn't know where to look.

I had gone to a Moms for Liberty event

where we had a preview to a documentary.

You are teaching children adult-child sex,

you're teaching transgender issues,

and children are mouldable and influenced by that.

In my humble opinion, it will be worse before it gets better.

My kids go to the schools here,

my family's kids go to the schools here,

my friends' kids go to the schools here.

It was disheartening to think that was actually happening

in my hometown.

We first really encountered the Moms for Liberty organisations

during Covid, as they really pushed to open schools

and unmask children,

and that's when we started to hear about their parental rights.

Some of us moms out here have really struggled...

Have children that have really struggled with wearing a mask.

Then, when that crisis was over,

they turned to the books.

The things that Moms for Liberty is fighting against

is pornography in school, teaching young children

scientific ideologies that have... Non-scientific ideologies.

And it just spread.

We could almost see a preview of what was to come

and this playbook emerged.

We were afraid. We were told not to tweet,

we were told not to put things on Facebook.

They came after me

and they came after our library, they came after our library board.

We were called evil specialist instead of media specialist.

I know they're going to fire me, I know they're making a case

to fire me, I know it's coming, but I'm not going to shut up.

I'm just not going to do it.

You continue to speak out, you will be on the chopping block,

you will lose your job.

"We have guns. When can we start killing liberals?"

When could they start hunting us.

Hold the line against the LGBT mafia

and their damn paedo fans!

We had to bring in law enforcement to meetings.

This white truck pulled up behind us

and the guy rolled down his window and he yelled at me,

he said, "We're coming after you next."

We're going to keep coming so hard, the only thing these woke-tards

have got to figure out is whether

it's on their face, back, butt or thighs.

Woo!

A Florida school district has pulled 176 books

from its libraries to comply with the new state education reform law

championed by Governor Ron DeSantis.

We are going to make sure that parents have a seat at the table

and that we protect... erm, protect their rights.

Under Florida's HB 1467 Law,

school books have to be free of pornography

or certain race-based teachings.

Violating parts of the law could lead teachers

to be charged with a felony.

Librarians are pulling books without anyone challenging them.

The teachers in Manatee County were told, "By Friday at 3pm,

"you will either cover with paper,

"turn them to the walls, or take your books home."

They thought they were erring on the side of caution.

But the kids were so upset, they actually

texted their parents and said, "Everyone's crying,

"everyone's upset. We need our books. We want our books."

They wrote emails to the principal,

saying, "Please, don't take away our books."

Part of what I see as my calling is taking care of children.

Elizabeth Ann Seton was the patron saint of teachers.

I do not believe that Scripture is there

for us to use as a weapon, or to make our political points.

Please do some research as to our founding fathers.

Their biggest fear was that we'd become a theocracy.

They did not want to be governed by a king,

and they did not want to be governed by a god.

They wanted freedom.

Librarians have heard from hundreds of kids

that books have saved their lives.

That's why, to me, I see this as the civil rights fight of our time.

And they're not banning just any books.

They're banning the best books.

We reject woke ideology.

CHEERING

We fight the woke in the legislature.

We fight the woke in the schools.

We fight the woke in the corporations.

We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.

- Florida is where woke goes to die. - CHEERING

We've got, down here,

The Librarian Of Auschwitz some people are challenging.

Or Flamer, which is actually a really good one.

And, of course, Handmaid's Tale.

I had been at the school for nine years.

It had been a dream job for the first seven of those nine years.

The governor says this is child pornography.

In June, one of the Moms For Liberty in our area had posted a video about

the second book in the A Court Of Thorns and Roses series,

and she tagged all of the schools that had the book in their library.

So then the district decided to just quietly pull the books

from the shelves and delete them.

And I happened to notice a few days later, when I went up to work.

I was very concerned that this was kind of getting out of hand.

So I went to the school board meeting.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Julie Miller,

my address is on file, and I am a high school librarian.

I know, we're kind of seen as the bad guy.

Um, so I just wanted to give you guys just a moment of

hearing straight from one of us who are boots-on-the-ground to let you

know, like, a little bit about us.

I am a Baptist minister's wife,

and daughter of a minister, as well.

It was at that same meeting where Bruce Friedman showed up.

- ARCHIVE: - This year, at least 102 books have been banned

in Clay County, Florida.

They were removed from school libraries,

thanks in large part to this single conservative activist.

I represent No Left Turn in Education,

that's the Florida chapter. I also run the New York chapter.

Also a member of Moms For Liberty.

I spent, like, 45 minutes after that meeting talking to him,

and it was a, you know, pleasant...

..weird, but pleasant conversation.

Um, and the next thing I know

is Bruce essentially said in an article,

"I'm going to clean up the libraries in Clay County.

"Anyone who gets in my way,

"I'm going to run over them like a dead body."

And it was just like, "First of all, who runs over a dead body?

"Like, what does that even mean?"

But very, like, triggering language.

And then he started writing my name on challenge forms.

"Talk to Julie Miller.

"Julie Miller has this one. Surprise, surprise.

"Disgusting."

It was like, "What is going on?!"

MUSICIANS PLAY UPBEAT MUSIC

Julie was very helpful

in research of

the books that have been banned, the books that have been removed.

- # Get ready - Get ready

# For the miracle... #

To attempt to take black history

and take a lot of our stories away from children

is one of the most evil things I think a person can do.

- ARCHIVE: - When it comes to the number of banned books

at schools, Florida leads the nation, and Clay County

is number one in the state.

Clay County is one of the last

"good ol' boy" frontiers in North Florida.

If you ride through Clay County,

most of the streets are named after slave owners.

And so that symbolism and that ideology,

it gives them opportunity

to be deep-seated in government positions,

superintendents, school boards,

city managers, all of that.

These are some of the books

Stamped.

- Anybody ever seen the movie, Color Purple? - Yes.

And, of course, 1619 Project.

Do you care whether books that are written by

African-Americans, or books like...?

This book was banned!

As a kid, like, going to a predominantly white school,

I was always questioning,

questioning who I was,

like, hair, skin colour.

I feel like this, New Kid, Hair Love,

I feel like that would have made me feel

a little bit more comfortable in my own skin.

What's dangerous with this book banning

is it's being led by people

who say they love God.

And I call for the fire of God, and the glory of God,

and the fear of the Lord to fall on Clay County, Florida,

in the name of Jesus.

SCATTERED APPLAUSE

Next, we have Jeffrey Dove.

I do not wish the fire of God to fall on you all.

That's not the God I serve.

I'm a lot of things.

I'm a pastor. I'm a father.

And most of all, I'm a strong black man.

But when you start talking about removing African-American authors

and African-American history,

I got a problem with that,

because right now, we are an embarrassment...

..in the state of Florida.

We got the list of, "These books are to be removed immediately,

"so says the Oversight Committee."

I wrote an email back and just asked, like,

"Could you please provide us with the reason

"why each of these books is being removed?"

Some months have went by.

I asked someone about Julie and how she was doing.

That one thing that I dreaded the most, had happened.

I lost my job.

I was removed from my library

for asking questions.

They're going to say it's because I was refusing to follow directives.

That's not the case at all.

It's really just because I kept pushing back.

I sat there for three hours.

I wasn't giving up, I wasn't budging.

I don't care how long it was. They were going to hear me that day.

All right, so before, actually,

we move into school board member comments, I did have a question from

the audience. Um, it's from...

Yeah, the reason I came back, because I saw

one of you all's media specialist in Clay County was removed.

It's wrong.

Don't do... Don't do people like that

when they have a different view.

It's not fair.

If anybody has to be responsible for this cabal who are leading

the United States in books that are not on the shelf,

it's y'all.

Shame on you. Shame, shame, shame on you.

Moms For liberty are making a lot of ground.

Very smart young ladies.

I call it wicked genius.

It's a genius that pertains to oppressing people.

It was like snuffing out a candle.

It just happened so, like, quietly,

and...it's like, "You're dismissed."

And it's all politically motivated, right?

But I met the young man outside,

and I said, "How you doing, brother?"

He says, "I hate librarians."

This can't be America.

No, this can't be America.

It feels like I'm living in a dystopian novel right now.

Like, if you would have asked me ten years ago

if I was going to have, like, security concerns

at a librarian conference,

I'd have been like, "You're nuts!"

This is the highest number of attempted book bans

since we began compiling these lists 20 years ago.

And I hate that censorship

affects our professional lives, but it is a reality.

Sometimes librarians are relocated to other buildings or grade levels,

and sometimes librarians

are outright fired for defending intellectual freedom.

And then there are the cases where librarians feel

for their physical safety and for those of their families.

One librarian had her tyres slashed during a library board meeting.

We understand what's going on right now

on a very real and personal level for some of us.

Um, but I know that, as librarians,

we continue to remember and focus on our professionalism

and the work that we do.

We want to make sure that we are reinforcing to you

that even in the darkest of days, this is still what we do.

We want to talk about a book-banning controversy under way

in Island Trees, New York.

- ARCHIVE: - For six years, The Naked Ape, Slaughterhouse-Five,

and seven other books, labelled by the school board as anti-American

or obscene, have been banned from Island Trees library shelves.

Steven Pico, you were one of the students to bring action,

- were you not? - We filed suit because we believe that every American,

regardless of age,

has the right to be exposed to a diversity of viewpoints

and gain a number of perspectives on life.

The Supreme Court today sharply curbed

the authority of local school boards to ban books from school libraries.

For laypeople, this is the Roe v Wade of libraries.

When the cross lists came back,

when Granbury boxed up hundreds of books,

they were infringing on what Pico established.

A book cannot be removed because of a disagreement with

the ideas that are in the book.

We're highly trained in the selection of

age-appropriate material. Most of us have

library and information science master's degrees.

We learned legal precedent. We take courses on it.

The thing that truly concerns us is when an individual,

whether it be a parent or a non-parent,

or a single group within the society,

tries to determine what is correct

for not only that child, but other children, as well.

That is what we fight.

When I was growing up, we had one road here,

and if you were black, you lived on that one road.

In our parish, we have the highest concentration of, like, KKK,

Aryan Nation, those type of groups.

I'm not going to say my parents are white Christian nationalists,

but when I started being targeted,

they didn't speak to me for a week.

It's, uh...kind of a mess in here.

There we go. Turned it.

All right.

For 40 years, I've been wanting to build a cannon.

See, it rolls real easy.

It's called a Confederate mountain rifle.

It's an exact replica of what you would have seen

back to the Civil War.

You know, I've done a lot of family history and research.

My ancestors listed slaves as property,

and I'm not proud of that.

It's uncomfortable.

But I think sometimes we have to be uncomfortable

and face that fact.

Why would you want to embarrass white kids, or...?

It's like she said, that's the past,

and we can't change that.

What you don't want to do

is teach your kids to hate their country.

Because then, when they grow up, we won't have a country.

I love my country,

but I think we have to acknowledge that we're not perfect.

Don't teach only

the bad, the bad, the bad, the bad, the bad, the bad.

- ARCHIVE: - While the rest of us were in lockdown,

Live Oak Middle School librarian Amanda Jones

and her students were travelling the world.

I decided if they couldn't go out in the world,

I was going to bring the world to them.

She was awarded the 2021 National School Librarian of the Year.

And I hope to use it as a platform to advocate

for school libraries across the country.

"Here is Amanda Jones at the Livingston Parish Library Board

"meeting on Tuesday, July 19th.

"Why is she fighting so hard to keep sexually erotic

"and pornographic material in the kids' section?"

The reason why I got targeted and attacked is

because I spoke at our public library board meeting, as a parent.

"If a middle school teacher is promoting pornography

"and erotic content to kids,

"I don't care what kind of pedigree she has."

And I've never promoted pornography and erotica to children.

Our local representative came for a photo op

when I got National School Librarian of the Year.

She was there for that photo op.

Two years later, she's perpetuating lies about me.

Jones was the subject of harsh memes,

comments and threats.

Police couldn't determine who was threatening her.

I have made it very well known that I travel with a weapon,

multiple weapons,

and we got security all around our home.

I have escape routes wherever I go, in my head, and I...

I get my groceries delivered.

I don't go in public in my community.

Because the things they say online are so horrible,

um, you know,

that I should be killed, and I'm...

I shouldn't be alive.

And that's sad. This is just my life now.

I don't think any of us imagined when we started out

that one day our lives might be at risk.

I reached out to a lawyer.

Just got some background information about our county DA.

And who in Texas would want to be

the first district attorney to try to prosecute a school librarian?

That was an existential moment for me.

Imagining my face on the "wanted" poster,

and my friends being taken away in handcuffs.

- You are obsolete, Mr Wordsworth. - A lie!

- No man is obsolete. - You're a librarian,

Mr Wordsworth!

I'm a human being! I exist!

And if I speak one thought aloud,

that thought lives, even after I'm shovelled into my grave!

You waste our time, Mr Wordsworth,

and you're not worth the waste.

How do you find, ladies and gentlemen?

- Obsolete. - Obsolete. - Obsolete. - Obsolete.

I concur.

When I was first attacked, back in 2021,

a student, who was not a library regular previously,

started showing up in the first couple of weeks of September,

every day, during lunchtime, and would just roam the stacks.

And I'd go out and I'd say, "Can I help you find anything?"

And he would say, "No," and I would leave it at that.

I don't want to, you know, nag a kid.

After two weeks of this, every day, I see the kid emerge from

the stacks holding Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison.

I read the book, myself, and loved it.

And I was kind of dumbfounded

because it was not a wildly popular book.

It wasn't on many people's radar.

And of all the 20,000 books in the library,

he emerges with that one?

I said, "How'd you learn about it?"

And he said, "My parents sent me...

"My parents told me about it

"and said I should look for it in the library."

24 hours later...

..that student's mother

was standing in front of the Board of Education...

Martha Hickson, our school librarian, remarked to my son

as he was checking out the books, quote, "I love that book."

..and calling me a pornographer, paedophile, and groomer of children.

This amounts to an effort to groom our kids,

to make them more willing to participate

in the heinous acts described in these books.

It grooms them to accept the inappropriate advances of an adult.

My principal was in that room.

The assistant superintendent was in that room.

But they sat there in silence.

And here's the pain... really painful part.

They have maintained that silence for three years.

Being a librarian, I started researching.

I was watching Texas and Florida, both very carefully.

I felt like that's sort of the petri dish

of what could be coming up here.

This started in Llano, Texas.

About a week later,

a woman in Virginia saw the Llano challenge

and picked up some of that language.

Both of these books include paedophilia.

- CROSSTALK - This... Do not interrupt my time!

And then, about two weeks later,

the same claim showed up at our board meeting,

and that suggested to me something was afoot.

And I said, "I don't think this is organic.

"I don't think this is spontaneous.

"This is organised."

DRUMMING, CHATTER, WHISTLING

- ARCHIVE: - Moms For Liberty are having their town hall here tonight

on the Upper East Side.

Welcome, New York. We are thrilled to be here.

Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

CHEERING, APPLAUSE

It seems like there's a lot of misconceptions out there about

who we are and what we do.

We were founded in 2021 by Tiffany Justice and I.

We're both former school board members.

What is Moms For Liberty? The New Yorker calls them

"the right-wing mothers fuelling the school board wars."

No-one's going to fight for any issue like a parent.

We're not in it for the money. There's no glory.

We love our children,

and we're willing to do anything to protect their future.

What money?!

LAUGHTER

Now, they'll tell you that their funding for these

national conferences comes from selling their $15 T-shirts.

You don't get Ron DeSantis to show up at your conference,

Donald Trump to show up at your conference,

just from selling T-shirts.

But this grassroots group is registered as a 501(c).

They are not required to disclose their donors.

But we do know that their PAC received a $50,000 donation

this year from Julie Fancelli,

the largest single donor to the January 6th Stop the Steal rally

that led to the Capitol insurrection.

We asked Moms For Liberty who else is among their donors,

and they did not respond with any specific names.

What ideology are the children being indoctrinated into?

I think parents fears' are realised.

They're looking at these books where sexual discussions

are happening with their children at younger and younger ages.

And Tango Makes Three has been challenged

in at least 32 states.

It's about two male penguins who care

for an abandoned baby penguin.

The book has been labelled a tool for so-called grooming.

Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen.

They drew pants.

You're getting to the point of talking about

a period is sexually explicit.

Under the new law, Lord Of The Rings is considered to be inappropriate.

There are some Facebook moms' group

that said that pandas symbolised something...

The graphic novel of The Diary Of Anne Frank.

Yep, there's your nudity, right there.

And Maus,

which has to do with mouse nudity in a concentration camp.

When they go after the books,

what they're really going after is those kids

that come into my library

for a safe space, and I cannot abide that.

Part of the ethics of our profession,

to support the First Amendment, and to fight censorship.

That's what I've been trained to do.

The North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School District

Board of Education meeting on

Tuesday, January 30th is now called to order.

If I were a younger person, I may have left by now.

But I believe firmly in what's right,

and then I also believe firmly in my students.

If I were to say to the Board, or someone at school,

"You are a vile and disgusting C-word

"and a danger to young people",

I could and should be escorted out of this building by the police.

This is the exact language that has been sent

to our school librarian by a group

led by the spouse of someone on the board.

If you want to get rid of

and censor books, you are no different

than fascist, for every

fascist movement began the same exact way.

If you're here to ban books with gay characters,

you might as well be here to start the Fourth Reich.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- Board, do you want him out for cursing? - Yes! - Yeah! - Yeah!

You guys cursed at my fucking children

at your fucking book banning meeting. You guys cursed...

- Out! - Out! - Out!

Thank you, Board!

The book itself, Queerfully And Wonderfully Made...

..that's going against the scripture.

It's, "Fearfully and wonderfully made",

and that's what we are.

I can go through the whole chapter of that, of the Bible.

This book is considered nonfiction, and it is including Christianity.

The Bible doesn't support this,

so that already debunks the nonfiction status of this book.

So we're talking about pornography here.

I was born and raised in Holden. I am also

transfeminine, and I am a queer person.

I don't think y'all understand

what it's like to grow up in an environment like this,

where even your family members

are constantly telling you that you're going to burn in hell.

Books like this say, "Hey, you are loved.

"There is a community that will be there for you."

Sorry, my anxiety is running very high because I can tell

that y'all very much misunderstand us.

- This is much... This require... - STUTTERING

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Amanda Jones.

The great thing about books is

that we all have different ways that we interpret them.

I read this book and I interpret it

as meaning a push for love and acceptance.

It was written by pastors

and mental health professionals for Christians.

This book is not in the children's picture book section.

It is in the teen nonfiction section

where it belongs, because it was written for teens.

Monitor your own children.

Don't let your children read it if you don't want to.

No-one's forcing you to check it out.

LGBTQ youth who report having at least one accepting adult

are 40% less likely to attempt suicide.

Some kids don't have those adults in their life.

I have lost over 12 students

who were ostracised

because they were made to feel less than

in this parish. And I feel it right now,

even though I'm not from that community,

from the hate that's coming from some people in this room.

It would be easy to move this book

and placate a few people for the sake of bypassing drama.

It would be easy.

But sometimes doing what's easy is not what's right.

SMATTERING OF APPLAUSE

The board would like to protect children

from inappropriate material and would prefer to remove

the challenged materials while the library processes its request.

I'll be damned if we're going to lose another kid

because of something our community has done to make them feel less.

I've had former students reach out

to me that have told me books have saved them.

And then there's the kids that grew up and killed themselves

because they were ostracised in our community for who they are.

And if I was silent,

my silence would be my compliance.

And I am not going to be complicit

in the death of children, or even the...

The hurtful feelings, or...

I'm not going to participate in that any more.

Because even though I didn't actively participate in it before,

I was silent and I saw stuff.

But I'm not going to do that any more.

I'm going to speak out about it, so...

This is my strong-willed child and I thought,

"Mm-mm, she's not going to lay down and take this."

Our district was doing an OK job before this.

Was it perfect? No. They were doing a pretty darn good job.

And they were watching out for our kids,

and they were trying to keep their own personal politics out

of the decision-making.

But that's not what we're doing any more.

Now it's all the culture wars of America

are just right smack dab right here

in the middle of my kids' school district.

After more than a year

of controversy, Keller ISD voted to ban books

about gender identity.

- CHILDREN CHANT: - I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas.

One state under God...

Hi. I'm Laney.

I'm a mum of four kids in Keller ISD.

As soon as our new Patriot Mobile school board was elected,

your top priority was to disregard

all the parent district and community input.

Since then, you've created a hateful, contradictory,

nonsensical, and unconstitutional book-banning rubric.

You are also passing a policy tonight

that gives you the power to hire

and fire every employee in the district,

all the way down to the cafeteria workers.

You don't trust your admin. You don't trust your principals.

You don't trust your teachers. You don't trust the parents.

You're coming for teachers and librarians.

You've made it clear, and they know it.

We have a movement within America that has decided

that school boards are now

where they want to push their agenda.

Patriot Mobile, they aren't just a wireless provider,

they are a political movement.

Up to 5% of every Patriot Mobile phone bill goes directly

to supporting Patriot Mobile's political action committee.

We need to put our money behind companies that share our values.

I'm looking at Glenn over here from Patriot Mobile.

We know that Patriot Mobile,

they admitted to coming into our communities

and interviewing people and finding

who they thought would best represent their interests,

and that's who they backed

with the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It wasn't until we started getting

these mailers that we realised what was happening.

We're talking probably seven, eight, nine, ten flyers

these people are getting,

covered with images of crying children

and saying they've been exposed to porn in school,

and your kid is being made to feel guilty for being white.

All of these things that are just simply untrue.

Then we started sharing them online, and we found out

the school districts neighbouring ours had

the exact same flyers paid for by the exact same PAC,

but just with the pictures of

the candidates in ours swapped with theirs.

And we were like, "Oh, my goodness, this is a large-scale,

"coordinated effort

"to take over school boards across the state of Texas."

One of the keys is these school boards, right? The school boards

are the key that picks the lock.

This was their blueprint, and they succeeded.

They backed 11 candidates in North Texas.

All 11 candidates won.

And now they hold a majority,

and the president, vice-president and secretary on

all four school boards that they decided to fund.

And they're going to continue to spread it.

We're focused on school boards here for now,

but our goal is to spread this

as large as we can to other states and other communities

that are, quite frankly, wanting

what we're doing here in their communities.

They had that school board meeting

- completely packed with people. - I'm sure. - And... - I'm sure.

..somebody told me this morning to go

online and look at the Republican Club.

They had some meeting, I guess, last week and it was all about

book banning. And they had speakers come in,

so they got them all riled up and gave them

all their talking points so that they could all come to this meeting

and completely drown anybody else's voices out.

That's what they did. That's what they do.

Well, you know,

a lot of these people actually make threats,

you know, about having a gun and yada, yada, yada.

Mm-hm.

They drive around in trucks with...

- ..you know... - Confederate flags. - Yeah, Confederate flags

- and those secret organisations, they're not secret... - Oath Keepers,

- Three Percenters... - Yeah, Three Percenters...

- Yeah, you see that all the time. - ..the skulls.

It's just like, just so ate up with hate

and there's not enough voices countering it.

..Of The United States and of this state.

- IN UNISON: - Of the United States and of this state.

- So help me God. - So help me God.

- Congratulations. - Thank you.

APPLAUSE

I ran on this platform.

The porn and the grooming and paedophiles in schools.

I felt like it was there.

People just didn't know or they didn't know where to look,

and I was going to find it, dagnabbit!

So that's what I did, you know, that's why I ran.

And so I did the research.

I was expecting to find something

that would relate to what they were saying.

But nothing even came close. I mean, it just...

It didn't even come close. It just became very apparent

that what they were trying to tell parents

and what was actually happening in our schools,

were two completely different things.

This was just complete sexualisation of the kids.

And it's not stopping,

it's not going backwards, it's moving forward.

It's moving full steam ahead.

Our mission on The Blue Shark Show

was to bring transparency to our local government.

It pains me to say that GISD, through the inaction

of the Board of Trustees and the upper-level administrators,

are grooming your children.

The "aha" moment for me

was a conversation I had with one of my former co-hosts.

I felt we need to let our community know

that it's not in the schools,

and he told me to stop talking to my fellow trustees.

Just completely cut off communication.

Granbury races for the trustees,

we've got three positions that are up.

If you want more-morally-sound schools

that don't have satanic cartoon porn

and jihadi sympathiser material on the library,

this is a no-brainer.

They wanted to flip the board.

They wanted to flip the Commissioners Court.

They want to flip the city council.

Every level of government here locally to get their candidates in.

When you're trying to get people in every level of government,

something else is going on behind the scenes.

I refused to do their bidding

and I said, "No, I'm not doing that. That's not right."

Now I'm enemy number one with them.

Surprise, surprise.

Courtney Gore, who's been an entire

and complete and total disappointment.

Yes, I would say disappointment is a big word.

And I go back to that culture of, do you want to do the right

thing and not be liked by everybody?

I guess Courtney's woke.

- She woke. - Courtney's woke?

I guess she's woke now, is what they're saying.

- Courtney? - Yes.

You can't say there's not porn in schools, cos there is.

I knew I was going to get backlash,

but I never thought it was going to rise to the level that it did.

There was a June meeting where a gentleman -

it was actually his grandfather - came with a firearm.

Yeah, I've got something for you, too.

You just wait.

I don't play by the rules any more.

I haven't played by the rules since Vietnam.

And I'm not going to start now.

We have profile sheets

of Courtney Gore, which... She's not here.

Profile sheets. We know what you do, we know where you live.

- MURMURING WOMAN: - It's threatening. And wrong.

One of my younger brothers came over here

and actually slept on our front porch that night,

just to make sure we were safe.

I feel like by talking, that is

the only way I'm going to be able to protect myself.

Like, I have to be vocal.

And if I'm not, that's when they get the power.

Last day in Granbury.

We're very excited to be leaving.

This is a place Mindy and I both grew up in...

..came back to raise our kids in.

I ran the Baseball and Softball Association,

I served on the school board. And this place changed.

People more willing to impose their religion on others,

discriminate against others. We've been fighting for years.

The book ban is the latest piece.

I have a proven conservative record,

always considered one of the top conservatives in the House.

Before the Krause List, there had been

zero parent requests to review books, not even one.

So why are we doing this?

My Texas House rep, while I was serving on the school board,

the first time he got elected,

we met with him as a school board and said,

"Here's the things we care about

"in public education and we'd love your support."

He told us, "Yes, yes, absolutely."

And when it came time to vote,

he voted exactly the opposite.

I couldn't understand why.

You told us you were going to support our schools,

and then you voted against them every time,

and, honestly, started to bad-mouth our schools.

And that's truly

what made me start digging into money.

60%, 70% of his money was coming from one source,

which was a billionaire out in Cisco, Texas.

I did the thing that people do, right?

When you discover something is you put it on Facebook

or you put it on Twitter and you talk about it.

Our schools are not to be used for personal political agendas,

and our children are here for education,

not religious indoctrination.

Go tell your pastor.

Our schools are not your church. Thank you.

I'm good at spreadsheets, so I built pie charts and...

Yeah, I built a site to make it go.

We have Chris Tackett, who is

a former trustee of this school board.

- Pie chart guy for the Texas... - Right, he does pie charts...

- ..for all the state reps. - Right, for all the conservatives

to show where all the dark money goes.

It was kind of an eyeopener for me to realise

that there was this bigger agenda behind everything.

Some of the people that are pushing this agenda believe

it is their duty to take over everywhere - government,

public, schools, media, every aspect of our lives.

You're going to read about

certain verticals or structures that the enemy is working on.

Satan wants to occupy the seat of influence over the Supreme Court,

over the government, over education with indoctrination.

We're the force that is hindering

the devil from doing what he wants to do.

God takes what the devil meant to harm us and he turns it into good.

He blesses us with it.

Every time we're attacked at Patriot Mobile,

our sales just go through the roof.

We increase our sales.

And so what does increasing our sales mean?

It means we can give more money back

to organisations like Moms For Liberty.

This is a spiritual war,

not a political war.

APPLAUSE

Is the agenda to gain power and money?

Or is it to make our country a Christian theocracy?

Or are they one and the same?

Thank you for having me. All of you.

I moved to Granbury in 2020, and...

..I really hope it stands up to the reputation it had when I came.

The word I have on my heart is repentance.

Not all of us had a hand in what's happened here,

but we are the ones who are present to solve the issues.

The last book I read was 600-plus pages

and it was a whipping, for poor quality -

number one - but also sexual content.

And I'm sorry to point fingers,

but we have librarians who are misunderstanding

what is healthy and good for children.

I think you ought to have people of good moral standards,

people in the community that maybe even are voted on,

pastors like Paul Duncan. He would never steer you wrong,

and he would put you in a safety zone with your books.

You don't have to have these ultra-controversial

books in your library.

Hey, TikTok, I got a wild one for you.

In 2018, I received this text from my mom after coming out,

and was effectively cut off from my family and eight younger siblings.

I came across this video showing my mom speaking at

a school board meeting in Texas,

calling for the district to remove books, repent,

and appoint a pastor to review and approve educational material.

She even filed charges

against librarians in Granbury, Texas.

Literally, you have thousands of books.

So what harm is it to let go of some of them?

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you, Miss Brown.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- Your kids do not go to school here. - No, they don't.

You're on a political agenda, everybody knows what you're doing.

You're trying to get school staff arrested.

You've already tried it. That's what you're doing.

And we know that's what you're doing.

That's fine with me if you know it. I'm not hiding anything.

- I respect you... - You notice I haven't hid a thing.

I'm not hiding anything.

And I do have a problem with sexually explicit books in the library.

I'm sure you do.

- And expose fraud. - You're trying to arrest librarians.

I have nothing to say to you.

You're trying to arrest librarians.

- You're trying to arrest librarians. - I do not understand.

You're a fascist.

- You're a fascist. - Fascist?

Fascist. Fascist.

When I moved here to San Diego,

I got a bunch of prints.

My siblings from a few years back,

one of the last times I got to see them, and my partner here.

His name is Andrew.

Growing up, none of my siblings - there's nine of us total -

none of us have stepped foot in a public school.

Every piece of printed material

that came into our home was curated by my parents.

I'm starting...

..a little collection of, um, books.

It's off to a small start.

The book that started it all, All Boys Aren't Blue.

Right off the bat, this book is saying,

hey, there are some heavy topics, like, be aware.

It all seems so much smaller and, like, depressing.

I hope my siblings can make it out unscathed,

and I'm worried that they're growing up

in even more extreme circumstances.

And I'm, you know, I hope that they're able to...

..find their own path as well.

What my parents - the people that my parents learned from -

are doing is so harmful,

and they deserve to be put back in their lane.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Weston Brown.

"I was born and raised in Texas and am grateful

"for the opportunity to speak here tonight.

"A few months ago, I saw my mom, Monica Brown,

"standing at this podium calling for the removal of books

"and asking the school to follow the guidance of religious..."

Weston Brown.

From a young age, I was taught to give

a voice to people who were disregarded,

elevate the marginalised and love my neighbour.

Today, I strive to be the person I needed when I was young.

Someone who would stand up,

speak out and protect the kid that felt alone.

Growing up, we read the Bible cover to cover

from the earliest age I can remember.

We repetitively read graphic depictions of sex,

violence, genocide, sexual assault, and incest.

However, topics related to dating,

safe sex, drugs, alcohol or sexual identity,

were deemed inappropriate or too heavy to discuss.

I would have given anything to read

a book with a character that felt the feelings I felt...

..asked the questions I couldn't ask,

and learned the lessons that I needed to learn.

It's been nearly five years since I came out to my family.

I'm not allowed to join in family celebrations or holidays,

or be a part of my eight younger siblings' lives,

solely because I'm not straight.

I'm here today to implore you

to listen to librarians,

educators and students.

Not those speaking from a religious perspective

or at the bidding of a political group.

If you choose to marginalise difference

and remove representation, you will only cause harm.

History will remember your decisions and demand accountability.

Show the world that Granbury will not succumb to fear...

..but will shine brightly,

leading the way for the next generation of Texans.

Thank you for listening.

APPLAUSE

Next up, we have Monica Brown.

Thank you. And I knew that was coming, what came tonight.

It's no surprise. Not all true.

But it is true that we have said no

in our home for what we expect in our family,

whether that matters to any of you or not.

This is an example.

You know, in the scripture it says Adam knew Eve.

That's not the same

as saying he stuck his dick in her body.

That's what you've got in your mind, right?

Listen, that's what you got in your mind...

That's my mom, who birthed me,

who raised me and fed me and took care of me.

Is it some sort of religious psychosis?

Years of messaging

from extremist pastors and political leaders?

Because when I look at my mom, I see someone

who absolutely believes what she's saying.

And I see someone who looks scared.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you so much.

OK.

Your mother has been involved in this process.

What was it like to stand here tonight, knowing she's here as well?

You know, I, in my mind, that wasn't...

It's interesting, it wasn't

what was top of mind for me. I don't have a message for my family

or for my mom or my dad specifically.

I've brought and said everything

that I have to say to them in many conversations,

many times over.

And so my perspective tonight isn't

to try to reach through to my parents.

That's a conversation that - they have the tools they need.

They know what they need to do to build the bridge.

But my goal... Not my goal,

my plea is for librarians, educators,

students, and the boards to pay attention to what matters.

Monica, do you have any comments? Mrs Monica Brown.

I think as librarians we recognise that we're on a continuum.

But the swing between these polarising views

are having catastrophic effects

on our social structures and our communities.

We are on the precipice of some very,

very bad things happening in this country.

I just hope and pray that people are waking up.

It's gone way beyond the Krause List, honey.

Way beyond the Krause List.

We are going to take back our schools.

This is what I will do to the grooming books

when I become Secretary of State.

Being offended is the basis for House Bill 666.

They feel that this legislation could be used to threaten schools,

to remove books, or face arrest,

just because someone does not like a book.

Is it so hurtful to maybe nurture morality?

Is that so awful to do that?

I think that there's going to come

a time in some of these books where it crosses a criminal line.

It's called contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

I had been home for three days...

..and in that last day I had

people calling me left and right. "Are you OK? What's going on?"

I was like, "What are you talking about?"

A Hood County constable attempted to bring felony charges

against three librarians

for providing students with library books

the constable deemed obscene.

Now, I'm not one of those crazy,

overthrow-the-government anarchist types.

But it is a legitimate question to ask.

What do you do when your government doesn't follow its own rules?

How does a sheriff arrest

someone for violating your constitutional rights?

I had some complainants come in on Friday

and talked about making a report,

- um, about the books. - OK.

- Do you know if they use student aids in the libraries? - Yes.

I was told that my library aids

were going to be pulled because for every piece

of pornography that was found in the library,

I would be served with one felony for every student.

Constable London, he was trying to tell the librarians

that if minors

had actually put those books on the shelves,

then it was then elevated to a felony.

I'm doing a criminal investigation into some of your staff.

Obviously, there's been an allegation

of books that were in conflict of the penal code, in the library.

Essentially, the librarians are my suspects.

If they're the ones that are choosing books

and putting them in there, you know,

they're the ones that are carrying the criminal liability.

Constable London was able to get

the names of the minors that checked out those books.

To me as a parent, that is extremely concerning.

So then I got to tell those poor kids that they were

not going to be allowed to be library aids,

because people are afraid that there's pornography in the library.

I'm definitely on that list. I was in the library

literally every single day of my senior year.

That is really, really scary. Um...

And that is information

that can be used in such a evil way.

If the student was underage,

was he going to go after the parents for the kids

checking out pornography?

Was he going to go after other students

who may have been 18 at the time?

As someone who's not had anything

to do with breaking the law and that, I mean,

maybe a speeding ticket.

But who would have thought child pornography?

I fear that we are at the point now where...

..we're going to see teachers in handcuffs.

There are forces that want to manipulate

and to control the dissemination of information.

Some of us feel that depth

of responsibility to help our communities navigate.

That's why we're here. Librarians are the firewall.

I happened to come in contact last year

with our state senator, Andrew Zwicker,

who, after hearing my story,

put forth the New Jersey Freedom to Read Act.

I went down to Trenton to testify

in front of the Education Committee in favour of the bill.

There is a proposed committee substitute which

establishes requirements

for library material in public school libraries.

And establishes protections

for school library staff members and librarians.

Being, you know,

your vast experience over the years in your role,

do you see a distinction between book banning

and restricting access to pornography for minors?

In my professional role, there is no pornography for

minors in a school libraries. So there is no need to restrict it.

But restrictions are, however, a form of censorship.

Your personal opinion about obscenity does not make it so.

Thank you for sharing.

I hold that a penis is inappropriate for fifth grade, but thank you.

We can talk offline. Thank you.

Had I been permitted to speak further,

I would have reminded her that fifth graders HAVE penises.

- NEWSREADER: - A county in Central Texas will consider shutting

down its entire public library system

because a federal judge ordered it to return banned books.

- REPORTER: - This dispute ultimately led

to a special meeting in Commissioners Court.

I am in favour of closing libraries temporarily

until we find a solution to the pornographic filth we do have.

How do we think it's OK that the librarians

would actually facilitate that and

deal that like a drug dealer to our kids?

And now they're becoming porn dealers?

Is that what our librarians have to become?

My name is Suzette Baker.

I'm the former head librarian for Kingsland, Texas.

I'm also a military veteran.

The books that are in the library are not pornographic.

None of them are.

I would like to know how The History Of The KKK is pornographic.

How To Be An Antiracist. How is that pornographic?

It's not.

This is about taking away rights.

Keep the libraries open.

Keep the information available to all equally.

This is not a communist nation.

You do not get to pick our reading material.

It is ours.

So with that, I'll take a motion.

I'll second.

The library will remain open.

We will try this in the courts,

not through social media or through news media.

- REPORTER: - Libraries in Llano will stay open after

a passion-filled afternoon.

SHE CHUCKLES

- Thank you. - That was embarrassing...

It's good to know we're not alone.

WOMAN SOBS

- Hey, you! How are you? - Good.

I'm proud of you. I forgot my FReadom shirt at home.

Will you take a picture of me beside it?

I do have a picture...

I couldn't be more delighted to introduce Amanda Jones to you.

Author of That Librarian - part memoir, part manifesto.

No-one should have to endure everything

that Amanda has had to endure,

and I fear that other people

in this room may have had similar experiences.

We are so grateful for all you do on the front lines.

APPLAUSE

How can you stay?

- Oh, stay in my town? - Yeah.

Oh, it's my town.

They can all go to hell. Like... LAUGHTER

You my hero, you know that, right?

- Thank you. - You're absolutely my hero.

I don't know what's going to happen next.

I cannot imagine us being on a cliff.

That's just too much.

But I don't know, maybe we are and we've gone over.

Our stories have power.

I can't stay anonymous,

I can't stay in the shadows any more.

I can't let them keep my story in the dark.

I won't be censored.

Just like we can't let them keep censoring the stories in our books.

What I do know is that our story is still being written.

But now it's everyone's story.