U.S. magazine hits the road with a truckload of free books to fight censorship
CBC Radio | Posted: October 6, 2023 10:01 PM | Last Updated: October 6, 2023
The New Republic media outlet launches Banned Books Tour as U.S. school book bans rise 33%
Carlos Benjamin is driving from state to state with a truckload of contraband to hand out to kids and their parents.
The product he's pedalling? Free books and information.
Benjamin is the campaign and events manager for Banned Books Tour 2023, an initiative spearheaded by the media outlet The New Republic to spread awareness about the growing list of books being pulled from school library shelves across the U.S.
He's driving across eight states in a truck filled with tens of thousands of donated books — some of which have been banned — as well as literature about censorship in the U.S., and how to fight it.
"It's just been inspiring to me overall to just, you know, receive so much love and support from people and to be able to equip them with what they can do to stop censorship and the banning of books," Benjamin told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
Rise in U.S. school book bans
The New Republic partnered with several organizations on the project, including the American Federation of Teachers, the African American Policy Forum and the American Library Association (ALA).
The event coincides with the ALA's Banned Books Week and comes on the heels of a report by the anti-censorship group PEN America that found book bans in public schools went up 33 per cent during the 2022-2023 school year.
Most of those books, the organization said, explore issues about race or LGBTQ identities.
"Those who are bent on the suppression of stories and ideas are turning our schools into battlegrounds, compounding post-pandemic learning loss, driving teachers out of the classroom and denying the joy of reading to our kids," Suzanne Nossel, PEN America's CEO, said in a press release.
"By depriving a rising generation of the freedom to read, these bans are eating away at the foundations of our democracy."
Benjamin says the kids he's met so far have strong and articulate opinions about book bans.
"They were just pretty surprised to know that it was even possible that, you know, people could pour so much knowledge and wisdom into books and then suddenly, like, they're just no longer available," he said. "To hear these young kids be able to communicate that so clearly, I was just so blown away."
Opposition in Florida
But not all the books in the truck have been banned, says The New Republic spokesperson Kym Blanchard. And which books they dole out depends on the nature of the stop.
"For instance, we were at a Pittsburgh elementary school. We didn't hand out any banned books. In D.C. we did, but our audience was a little older," Blanchard said.
"But we will give out, everywhere we go, information about banned books."
Benjamin says the stops so far in New York, Pennsylvania and D.C. have gone off without a hitch. But he got his first taste of pushback on Friday when he arrived in Daytona, Fla.
"Unfortunately, I haven't been given a clearance to go set up at the event site because of some opposition from groups that are here," he said. "Right now I am just standing by at my hotel waiting for the green light that it's clear for us to arrive."
And it's something he could face more of. The tour has several stops in Florida and Texas, the two states that have banned the most books in schools this past year, according to the PEN report.
"I'm like, are you kidding me? There is freedom of speech. We've all, as proud of Americans, thought that we have that right," Blanchard said.
"If I thought we were doing something horrible and seditious and malicious, that would be one thing. But to hand out books to kids and not be allowed to do that is kind of frightening and very, very upsetting."