Books teach us and inspire us. Banning them is anti-democratic.

In sixth grade, my reading teacher gave me access to a book that changed my life.

I went to Sutherland Elementary, a well-resourced Chicago public school in the Beverly neighborhood, with a school library and a librarian. Mrs. Traback, my teacher, has stocked a large metal cabinet in the back of the classroom with books. It was our own private mini-library.

The Autobiography of Maya Angelou I know why the caged bird sings it caught my eye. I checked it out and couldn’t put it down, mesmerized by her travels and childhood. My father saw me reading it and told me to return it. “Why?” I asked. “Because she gets raped in the book,” he said. “But I already read that part!” I protested. I dutifully did what he told me. In short. A day or so later, I checked it again and ate it. Angelou’s words inspired this future writer.

Looking back, I appreciate that my father didn’t walk into the school and demand that the book be taken off the shelf. Although I didn’t agree with his parenting method, I don’t miss the fact that he didn’t make other students think or target Ms. Traback.

Today’s political climate is different, causing the books to be banned. The Chicago-based American Library Association says efforts to censor more than 100 titles were made in 17 states, including Illinois, which now has a ban on banning the books. The number of targeted titles increased by 65% ​​last year, the highest level ever documented by ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom. Most of these books reflect the voices of people of color and LGBTQIA people.

The bans are a ‘fourth wave’ of censorship

The brilliant Tracie Hall stepped down as head of the ALA earlier this year. She has traveled the country and the globe opposing censorship and defending intellectual freedom. One of her latest projects is Litanies for Survival, a free community library in Humboldt Park. It’s a cozy and colorful reading room filled with donated books that have been banned elsewhere or written by black authors.

Audre Lorde, the late poet and former librarian, is the inspiration behind Litany for Survival (installed in partnership with The Honeycomb Network and Rootwork Gallery). On the shelves are works by June Jordan, Alice Walker and Natalie Diaz. The goal is to have 1,000 books. When I visited in May, 850 had been donated.

“It must have originated in Chicago because, of course, the first book shed was opened here by the Chicago Public Library,” Hall said. A book sanctuary is a political statement – you can’t control books.

Hall has been to countless school board hearings about censorship. They almost always start the same way: The person suggesting the ban hasn’t even read the book.

“How is that a legitimate argument you’re starting with? You don’t know what the redeeming quality is in these books, why so many of these books have become canon,” Hall said.

Topics such as sexual assault, parental substance abuse, suicide and the exploitation of immigrant labor may shock some adults, but Hall argues that reading about these issues can help young people: Books are an escape and affirmation.

Hall is more worried now than ever. She calls the current era the “fourth wave” of censorship.

America’s founding principles include freedom of religion, press, and assembly. In part, this was because some texts were banned in Britain.

But those freedoms did not extend to the enslaved. Then, during World War II, Hitler and the Nazis raided and destroyed the libraries. In the early 2000s, books that mentioned sexual orientation and gender fluidity began to be banned.

Now, there’s “a kind of wanton banning of books by LGBTQIA and people of color authors, and social justice themes, that we haven’t seen in days that we don’t even want to remember,” says Hall. States like Florida and Oklahoma, not just school and library boards, are taking up the mantle of censorship, something Hall sees as a threat to democracy.

“What happens if this continues to cause public libraries to depreciate,” she says, “in the same way that we’ve seen and allowed public schools to depreciate?”

Thank you, Ms. Traback

My mother is a voracious reader. She never limited what I could read. One of Sutherland’s teachers once expressed concern that I was reading, at the age of 11, Exorcist. My mother pretends to be concerned about the well-meaning teacher, but let me continue to scare myself.

What Hall said makes sense: Readers don’t try to ban books, not even in their own home. In fairness to my dad, I asked him for a credit card at Kroch’s and Brentano’s Bookstore and he obliged. I bought Toni Morrison’s The Bluest EyeTerry McMillan’s midwife and Other Literature by Black Women. I admit, I didn’t understand much of Morrison’s prose as an elementary school student, but that didn’t matter. I was thrilled when I read it.

My love for books shaped me. I thrived in a community that valued books as a vehicle for exploration and intellect. And I thank the late Mrs. Traback about that metal locker that filled him with wonder.

Natalie Y. Moore is the Race, Class & Communities editor at WBEZ.

Democracy Solutions Project is a collaboration between the Chicago Sun-Times, WBEZ and the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government, with funding support from the Pulitzer Center. Our goal is to help listeners and readers engage in the democratic functions of their lives and cast an informed vote in the November 2024 election.