By standing together as a community, we WON the battle of the banned book with Knox County Schools. Just like we WON the battle over Chilhowee Park not long ago! But we are STILL going to stay on our track of stocking Little Free Libraries in underserved neighborhoods. This much interest in a BOOK should be fostered. Especially a book of this consequence and historical value to our own community.
In Phase 1, we are organizing to supply Free Little Libraries around Knoxville with copies of Roots in response to the recent KCS ban. We want to celebrate and magnify this part of Knoxville’s local civic legacy by preserving this text in spaces that are not subject to future attempts at book bans.
The goal of our campaign is to promote access to African American history by teens and adults, through bringing visibility to this work specifically, and bring attention to the TN State “Age Appropriate Materials Act” generally, which has made this and other bans of books of merit possible.
If you are interested in ‘adopting’ a Little Library to keep stocked with copies of Roots (and potentially other banned books of merit in the future):
1. Please fill out the form below. You will be contacted with a link and passcode to sign in and choose your Little Library.
2. Download this message from Theotis Robinson Jr. to print and add to EACH copy you distribute:
https://indivisibleknoxville.org/TheotisBannedBooksIntro.pdf
We have the momentum with this most recent win, let’s use it!