SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Library-goers in Nashville will soon be able to assert their appreciation for the First Amendment and thumb their noses at state lawmakers with a special library card.
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Residents will be allowed to trade in their old library cards in favor a new bright yellow one that sports the defiant claim “I read banned books.”
The new cards are part of a Davidson County campaign called Freedom to Read meant to bolster support for the freedom to have access to whatever books one chooses.
“This campaign is our way of bringing our community together in our shared Freedom to Read, which is essential to sustaining our democracy,” Kent Oliver, the Nashville Public Library’s director, said in a news release.
Oliver said he hopes the limited scope of the campaign will add some excitement. The cards will only be available through May 26, and he hopes to hand out around 5,000 to local residents.
Tennessee has been a censorship hotbed as of late, with the state legislature just last week passing a new law that would allow a state-run commission the latitude to ban books in public schools and even veto local school board decisions on curriculum. The bill is currently on the desk of the state’s Republican Governor Bill Lee, who has not commented on whether he would sign it.
The bill’s original version would have also required the committee to approve every book available at the libraries in the state’s public schools.
When asked what should happen to the books that got banned from public school libraries had that part of the bill passed, Republican state representative Jerry Sexton answered, “I don’t have a clue, but I would burn them.”
Currently, the Nashville Public Library’s website offers users a helpful list of which books have come under fire across the nation so they can decide for themselves whether they want to read them.
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