The event was organized by New Hanover County Educational Justice and several other groups. It took place right before the county school board’s regular meeting, and called on teachers, parents and students to speak up against book bans.
The banned book in question is “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You” by Jason Reynolds, based on the work of Ibram X. Kendi. The book for young adults addresses the history of racism in America.
Democratic school board member Tim Merrick gave a speech, calling for members of the community to form a “NATO-like alliance” of support for groups of all backgrounds.
“Now, if they can ban Stamped, what else will they ban?” Merrick said. “We know there's two more books coming down the pipeline, and I can pretty well assume who they're going to come after.”
Related: Wrightsboro parent pushing for book ban, appeals after school committee rejects their challenge
Merrick asked the crowd to remain united, saying that all marginalized groups within the community must support each other in order to deter censorship efforts.
“Now, if you remember, look at the statistics, we have approximately 18% Black children in our schools, approximately 16% Hispanic. We have 13% special education kids. We have about 10% LGBTQ kids when they come after that. Who's left?” Merrick said.
Judy Justice, the other Democratic member on the board, called past and potential future book bans unconstitutional.
“They're working really hard on destroying democracy in the classroom, going against our Constitution,” Justice said. “We've got wonderful schools in this district. We got amazing students, families and most of all staff. And our staff is under so much stress because of this book ban.”
Two New Hanover County students expressed how they felt about the book ban.
Simeon Cole, a senior at Ashley High School and founder of the New Hanover County Chapter of Teen Democrats, said
“I wanted to read Stamped because in middle-school we had read Stamped for kids [a version adapted for young grades]. And that book was amazing,” Cole said. “It didn't change anything about middle schoolers' political opinions, because they don't really have those most of the time. But it was a good read, and it was educational. That history was interesting.”
Cole added that, “this school board sat there and let this book become a piece of… they treated it like it was trash.”
Fellow student Hazel Eyles, a rising senior and a former member of the New Hanover County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council, talked about the impact that banning books has had on her education.
“Ever since the school board chose to ban Stamped and prohibit it from being taught in classrooms, my education has been negatively impacted. Many of my teachers, and my friends’ teachers, are scared to teach books about real world issues. Teachers are in fear of their jobs,” Eyles said.
Eyles said above all, reading about vastly different experiences gives students the chance to not only learn about real-world issues, but to also learn more about themselves as they develop.
“Banning books that challenge[s] us, prevents us from understanding the world around us,” she said. “I have always wanted to help people in my community, but my personal experiences have been limited. Being able to read about other people's experiences has opened my eyes and allowed me to understand many different perspectives.”
Mahlaynee Cooper, co-founder of the poetry collective Speak Ya Peace North Carolina, wrote a speech called “Leave The Damn Books Alone.”
“History is about truth. It is about people, and what happens to those people. It’s about denial, whitewashing or wearing white frame glasses while clinging to delusional perceptions. Banning books does not erase them,” she said.
In her speech, Cooper singled out Republican school board member Pat Bradford – who said at a meeting in 2023 that the book was unbalanced because it primarily focused on the perspective of an oppressed group, and that Reynolds’ rhetoric was not reputable.
Reverend Alyssa Lee of the Unitarian Universalist congregation of Wilmington, took to the podium and talked about her upbringing in a family that she called “racist and uneducated.”
“For example, my grandma had a tenant in one of her rental homes whose name I never learned until I became an adult, because my family only referred to her by the N-word,” Lee said.
Lee, who is also a former civil rights and employment attorney, said she was the first person in their family to go to college, and she owes much of their contributions to racial justice to the history and perspectives she would read about while in school.
Lee said her story demonstrates how books grant a greater insight into the lives of marginalized people, or as she says a look “through the lens of those who had been the oppressed, rather than the oppressors.”
Stamped was initially the subject of a temporary ban in New Hanover County, after Katie Gates, a parent of a former Ashley High School AP Language and Composition student, argued that the book was anti-American. But it’s been about 18 months since that decision, with no update.
