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A look at the banned-book reading groups that arose out of NHCS' removal of 'Stamped'

WHQR | By Rachel Keith

Published April 24, 2025 at 3:56 PM EDT

Co-owners of the Roasted Bookery, Jerry and Erin Jones, host the Humanist and Freethinkers of Cape Fear's banned book group at their bookstore.

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You was banned from classrooms in New Hanover County in September 2023. Even though that decision was made close to two years ago, it was a catalyst for the creation of at least two local banned book groups, which are still meeting.

Kim Miller is a member of the Humanist and Freethinkers of Cape Fear. She started a banned book group shortly after Stamped was removed from the classroom. They meet at the Roasted Bookery, a bookstore that recently moved to Castle Street, gathering every six weeks to read books that cover historical injustices, race, gender, identity, and sexuality. They also choose titles from the American Library Association’s banned book list. Some of their past readings include Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, The Bluest Eye, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

“We want to understand why there is a suppression of voices and free speech, and a lot of the common things we have found is a lot of it is school board members or government officials or even parents that find the material objectionable, and it's usually based on fear, fear facing uncomfortable truths, fear of the unfamiliar, fear of people who were different from them,” Miller said.

Erin Jones is the co-owner of the Roasted Bookery. She described how Miller approached her about hosting the reading group at her store.

“We're like, ‘Yeah, that's great because, I mean, they kind of fit into our model of what we sell and who we serve,” she said.

Jerry Jones is the co-owner of the Roated Bookery. He ran for the New Hanover County school board in 2024 but narrowly lost.

“So we intentionally curate all of our titles, such that the authors are representative of underrepresented communities. So all the authors are BIPOC, API, queer, differently abled, just people who have had trouble being published in the past; people whose stories have been denigrated for one reason or another,” he said.

Liza Palmer is a part-time instructor in the Film Studies Department at UNCW and is a former librarian. She started a group that meets on campus; they’ve read about seven books so far and meet quarterly. She said some of these books can be a conversation starter within a family.

“And I think it's sad that parents or adults don't see this as an opportunity to have conversations with kids about tough topics, instead of just sort of shutting it down and saying, ‘We're just going to pretend it's not there.’ Read it if you're concerned about what your kids are reading, read it along with them. Have discussions about it,” she said.

Flyer from the Palmers' last book discussion.

Dr. Tim Palmer is a professor and chair of the Film Studies Department at UNCW. He hosts the banned book group at UNCW along with his spouse, Liza. They recently read The Color Purple for their book discussion; Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning novel is found on banned book lists across the country, and it faced a high-profile ban in Brunswick County a decade ago.

“The Color Purple is 40 years or so old now, and it's as if we're trying to go backwards in time. It's like trying to un-invent fire or say, ‘You know that wheel thing, let's just pretend that didn't happen.’ These are things on the record. It's part of our tapestry of the past,” he said.

Jones said he sees a similar pattern with the book Stamped.

“The reality is that a book like Stamped would have a child go home for Thanksgiving dinner and say, ‘Grandma, where were you when they were integrating the schools?’ That, to me, is the kind of discussion they're attempting to avoid,” he said.

Many parents and legislators have framed attempts to review and, in some cases, ban books as protecting children, often from controversial topics like race or sexuality. Miller said she understands parents' concerns about age-appropriateness and respects their choice, up to a point.

“If a parent doesn't want their child to read a book, they absolutely have say in that. As parents, they have the right, but it's not fair to ban books for all children you know, you're taking access basically away from other families,” she said.

Over the past few years, there have been many challenges to books in classrooms and libraries, as documented in a 2023 collaboration by newsrooms from around North Carolina. More recently, there have been state-level efforts to promote the review of classroom material. North Carolina House Bill 636, titled “Promoting Wholesome Content for Students,” is making its way to the Senate. WUNC reports that it would create a local “community advisory board” with five parents and five district employees to review all new library materials. Additionally, they would take up book challenges. If the committee receives 10 complaints about a particular book, it would conduct a review. If the book is removed, a list of rejected titles would be maintained by the State Board of Education.

The bill would also allow parents and community members to sue if compliance isn’t followed.

Cape Fear region Republican House legislative leaders Charles Miller, Frank Iler, Ted Davis, and Carson Smith all approved of the bill; Democratic House member Deb Butler voted against it.

Parents can currently file complaints against instructional materials with the district under policy 3210. This is how Stamped was removed from classrooms. The typical process is that once the complaint is received, it triggers a review by the school’s principal and the school media and technology (MTAC) committee. If the parent appeals, it is then reviewed by a district-wide committee. If the parent appeals again, the case would be reviewed by the school board for a decision.

If more book challenges make their way through school districts throughout the Cape Fear region, one of these groups would likely take them up. In the meantime, Miller said the next book the group is reading is Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, a graphic novel about the author’s experience living under an Islamic regime. For the Palmers’ group, it will be a collection of writings about efforts to ban books, called Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers’ Rights.

Prior Reporting