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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 a 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 color,

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.

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 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 realized school librarians

could be criminalized for selecting books

and making them available on the shelf.

All those books, Ulysses,

I wonder what they say in all those books.

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 are supposed to be

this magical entry point to the world,

to stories, to ideas.

There it is, see it?

Something they're saying in there.

Where, 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's different.

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

- Yeah. - Taking that walk

for the first time with those five year olds

into kindergarten, it's a great feeling.

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 piped 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 catalogs

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 the 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 'em.

Get rid of 'em, deal with it.

Get rid of 'em."

Getting 'em off the shelves, putting 'em on carts,

putting 'em on whenever, 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 probably 10,000 books,

what are you gonna 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,

when we get to the cabinets, we open the cabinets,

it's shelves and shelves of books.

Harmless books.

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

Every book that was on that shelf felt like a student

that we were saying,

"We've gotta put you behind three locks.

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

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 civilization

as antiquated and stupid religious phenomenon?

You put an implication on it

and you feature this particular point out of a 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 old 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.

And 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.

'Cause 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 are coming after school librarians first.

Of course you are.

who says she lost her job because of it.

That was my office.

Where is it?

These are two books that I was asked to be removed,

and I would not remove them.

No, 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've 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.

"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 in 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.

Hallelujah.

Whoo! - There we go.

Mom, let me throw some books.

I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas,

one state under God, one and indivisible.

I do wanna clarify a couple of points

on behalf of the district.

As you know, Texas education

is a responsibility of the state,

which essentially makes Governor Abbott our CEO.

I wanna 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 gotta tell you, from what I've seen so far,

you are failing at your job.

Hey, 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 freshmen 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 a female,

well, it's no issue.

But as soon as you've got any kind of diversity,

hmm, red flag, red flag. - Got a gay person,

a Brown person, cut it out.

An analysis of the 850 book list

found 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 gonna 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.

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 brought you some excerpts of books.

I pray you really are able to stop

this kind of content from going in the 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 gonna go home

and I'm gonna 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.

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 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 moldable 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 friend's kids go to the schools here.

It was disheartening to think that

that was actually happening in my hometown.

We first really encountered

the Moms for Liberty organizations 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 are 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 gonna fire me,

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

I know it's coming, but I'm not gonna shut up.

I'm just not gonna 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 dang pedo 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 gonna keep coming so hard,

the only thing these woketards got to figure out

is whether it's on their face, back,

butt, or thighs, whoo.

A Florida school district

has pulled 176 books from its libraries

to comply with a new State Education Reform Law

championed by Governor Ron DeSantis.

We are gonna make sure

that parents have a seat at the table

and that we 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 3:00 PM, you will either cover with paper,

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

They thought they were airing 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 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.

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.

We've got down here, "The Librarian of Auschwitz"

some people are challenging, or "Flamer",

which is actually a really good one,

and then of course, "The 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 "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.

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 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.

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.

I'm also a member of Moms for Liberty.

I spent 45 minutes after that meeting talking to him.

And it was a pleasant...

weird, but pleasant conversation.

And the next thing I know is

Bruce essentially said in an article,

I'm gonna clean up the libraries in Clay County,

anyone who gets in my way,

I'm gonna run over them like a dead body.

Which is like, first of all,

who runs over a dead body, like, what does that even mean?

But very 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?

Julie was very helpful in research of the books

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

♪ Get ready ♪ ♪ Get ready ♪

♪ For when He returns ♪ ♪ For when He returns ♪

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.

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 old 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,

superintendent, school board,

city managers, all of that.

These are some of the books.

"Stamped".

Anybody ever seen the movie "The Color Purple"?

- Yes. - 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, going to a predominantly white school,

I was always questioning who I was.

Like, hair, skin color.

I feel like this "New Kid", "Hair Love",

I feel like that would've 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.

Next we have Jeffrey Dove.

I do not wish the fire of your 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.

And 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?"

So months had 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 gonna 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.

Okay, at this time I will open.

I sat there 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.

And this is from Mr. Dove. - 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 people like that when they have a different view.

It's not fair.

If anybody has to be responsible for this caboodle

we are leading the United States,

and 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 curtails 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.

And it feels like I'm living

in a dystopian novel right now.

Like, if you would've asked me 10 years ago

if I was gonna have security concerns

at a librarian conference, I'd 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 fear

for their physical safety and for those of their families.

One librarian had her tires 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,

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 wanna talk about a book banning controversy

underway in Island Trees, New York.

For six years, "The Naked Ape", "Slaughterhouse-Five",

and seven other books labeled by the school board

as anti-American or obscene

have been banned from Island Tree's library shelves.

Steven Pico, you are 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 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 Krause list 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 and 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 gonna say my parents

are white Christian nationalists,

but when I started being targeted,

they didn't speak to me for a week.

It's kind of a mess in here.

There we go.

Let me turn this.

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've 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.

'Cause 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.

You don't teach only the bad,

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

While the rest of us were in lockdown,

Live Oak Middle librarian, Amanda Jones,

and her students were traveling the world.

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

I was gonna 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's 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 I got targeted attacks

is 'cause 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 get my groceries delivered,

I don't go in public in my community.

'Cause the things they say online are so horrible,

you know, and I should be killed,

and I shouldn't be alive.

And it's sad, it's 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 shoveled into my grave!

You waste our time, Mr. Wordsworth,

and you are 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 in 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 wanna 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 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,

"I love that book."

And calling me a pornographer, pedophile,

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 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 pedophilia.

Do not interrupt my time.

And then about two weeks later,

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 organized."

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.

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,

who are both former school board members.

What is Mom's for Liberty?

"The New Yorker" calls them

the right wing mothers fueling the school board wars.

No one's gonna 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? What money?

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 at your conference

just from selling t-shirts.

But this grassroots group is registered as a 501,

they are not to disclose their donors,

but we do know that their pack 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 realized.

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 labeled

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 as sexually explicit.

Under the new law,

"Lord of the Rings" is considered being inappropriate.

There's some Facebook moms group

that said that Pandas symbolized 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.

It is 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 wanna get rid of and censor books,

you are no different than a fascist,

for every fascist movement began the same exact way.

You're here to ban books with gay characters,

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

- You want him out. - Yes!

You guys cursed at my fucking children

at your fucking book banning meeting!

You guys all cursed at my fucking children.

The book itself, "Queerfully and Wonderfully Made",

that's a going against the scripture,

it's fearfully and wonderfully made.

And that's what we are.

I could go through the whole chapter of the Bible.

If 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.

I was born and raised in Holden.

I'm also trans-feminine and I'm 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 gonna 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 require

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 ostracized

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.

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 gonna 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 ostracized in our community

for who they are.

And if I was silent, my silence would be my compliance,

and I'm not going to be complicit in the death of children

or even the hurtful feelings,

I'm not gonna participate in that anymore.

'Cause even though I didn't actively participate in before,

I was silent and I saw stuff,

and I'm not gonna do that anymore.

I'm gonna speak out about it, so.

This is my strong willed child and I thought,

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

Our district was doing an okay job before this.

Was it perfect? No.

But 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 anymore.

Now it's all the culture wars of America

are just right smack dab right here

in the middle of my kid's school district.

After more than a year of controversy,

Keller ISD voted to ban books about gender identity.

I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas,

one state under God, one and indivisible.

Hi, I'm Laney.

I'm a mom 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 are 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 realized what was happening.

We're talking probably 7, 8, 9, 10 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.

And then we started sharing them online

and then we found out the school districts neighboring ours

had the exact same flyers paid for by the exact same pack,

but just with the pictures

of the candidates inter 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 the 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 the school board meeting

completely packed with people. - Oh, I'm sure. 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 'em 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.

They drive around in trucks with, you know...

- Confederate flags. - Yeah, confederate flags

and those secret organizations

that are not secret. - Oath Keepers,

Three Percenters. - Yeah, Three Percenters.

Yeah, you see that all the time.

It's just so ate up with hate. - Yeah.

And there's not enough voices countering it.

Of the United States and of this state.

Of the United States and of this state.

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

- Congratulations. - Thank you.

I ran on this platform.

The porn, and the grooming,

and pedophiles in schools.

I felt like it was there,

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

and I was gonna find it, doggonit.

So that's what I did, 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 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 sexualization 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 ah-ha 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 to 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

- Yep. - And Jihadi sympathizer

material in the library, this is a no brainer.

They wanted to flip the board,

they wanted to flip the commissioner's court,

they wanna 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 has been a 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 wanna 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,

'cause there is.

I knew I was gonna get backlash,

but I never thought it was gonna 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 with the rules anymore.

I haven't played with the rules since Vietnam

and I'm not gonna start now.

We have profile sheets on Courtney Gore,

which she's not here.

Profile sheets, we know what you do,

we know where you live.

He's threatening.

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 gonna 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,

whether it's pro-life- - 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.

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 gonna 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,

for all the state reps. - He does pie charts, right?

- Pie chart man. - For all the conservatives

to show where all the dark money goes.

It was kind of an eyeopener for me to realize

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 are 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 organizations like Moms for Liberty.

This is a spiritual war, not a political war.

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'll 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 ya.

In 2018, I received this text from my mom

after coming out and was effectively cut off 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 Ms. Brown.

Your kids do not go school here.

- No, they don't. - You're on a political agenda

and 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.

You'll notice I haven't hid a thing.

I'm not hiding anything. - Me neither.

And I do have a problem with sexually explicit books

in the library. - I'm sure you do.

- And expose the wrong. - You're trying to arrest

librarians, I have nothing to say to you.

You're trying to arrest librarians.

You're a fascist.

You're a fascist. - There you go.

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's 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 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.

Be aware."

It all seems so much smaller and 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 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 I'm 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 a religious leader.

Weston Brown.

From a young age, I was taught to give a voice

to people who were disregarded,

elevate the marginalized, and love my neighbor.

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've given anything to read a book with a character

that felt the feelings I felt,

ask 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 am 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 marginalize 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.

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 now in our home

for what we expect in our family.

Whether that matters to any of you or not.

Just as 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,

but that's what you got in your library.

Listen, that's what you got. - It's in your library.

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?

'Cause 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.

Okay.

Your mother has been involved in this process.

What was it like to stand here tonight

knowing she's here as well.

You know, in my mind,

that wasn't as 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 have 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,

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

Monica, do you have any comments?

This is Monica Brown.

Monica, we're with NBC 5,

is there anything that you would like to say?

I think as librarians,

we recognize that we're on a continuum.

That the swing between these polarizing 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.

Good seeing ya.

I had been home for three days,

and in that last day,

I had people calling me left and right,

"Are you okay? 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 about the books.

- Okay. - Do you know

if they use student aids in the libraries?

Yes.

I was told that my library aids were gonna 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 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 'em 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 gonna 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,

and that is information that can be used in such a evil way.

If the student was underage,

was he gonna go after the parents

for the kids checking out pornography?

Was he gonna 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've thought child pornography?

I fear that we are at the point now where

we're gonna 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 happen 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 favor of the bill.

There is a proposed committee substitute,

which establishes requirements for library material

and public school libraries

and establishes protections for school library,

staff members, and librarians.

Being 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 school library,

so there is no need to restrict it.

Book restrictions are, however,

a form of censorship.

Your personal opinion about obscenity does not make it so.

Thank you for sharing.

I believe 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've reminded her that fifth graders have penises.

A county in central Texas

will consider shutting down its entire public library system

because a federal judge ordered it to return banned books.

This dispute ultimately led

to a special meeting in commissioner's court.

I am in favor of closing the libraries temporarily

until we find a solution

to the pornographic filth we do have.

How do we think it's okay 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 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's 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.

Libraries in Llano will stay open

after a passion filled afternoon.

Come here!

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

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

Good! How are you?

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

Will you take a picture of me beside it?

Yes! I just took 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.

How can you stay?

- Oh, stay in my town? - Yeah.

Oh, it's my town.

They can all go to hell.

You my hero, you know that, right?

- Thank you. - You absolutely my hero.

I don't know what's gonna 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 anymore.

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.