The Playbook to Fight Against Book Bans!

Now is the time for action. GLAAD created this guide for communities to defeat book ban attempts, and send a powerful signal of welcome and acceptance.

We’re proud to partner with GLAAD on this playbook to help communities fight against book bans that are uniquely targeting LGBTQ Americans.

This guide offers community members step-by-step recommendations to:

• Organize a diverse local coalition including students, parents, teachers, librarians, LGBTQ advocates, authors, health professionals and clergy.
• Create fact-based and meaningful messages to inform and inspire all in the community and present to school and library boards.
• Engage news, social and local media with facts and local interview voices and resources.
• Inform all in the community including families, businesses, elected officials and taxpayers about the absurdity of book bans, and the threat they pose to vulnerable youth, and the entire community’s safety, prosperity and reputation.  
• Hold school and library boards accountable to all taxpayers, ensure proper protocol is being followed in book reconsiderations, and demand necessary reforms to end the skyrocketing and discriminatory wave of book banning.

The guide also spotlights a community success story that turned back a book ban effort in suburban New Jersey. Community organizers engaged local mental health and child psychologists, a coalition of clergy, educators and librarians, and challenged New Jersey native author George M. Johnson to draft and deliver essays and statements shared in local and state news media and social media. Johnson’s statement was also delivered at the decisive hearing by Johnson’s mother and aunts, receiving a thunderous standing ovation. All challenged books were unanimously returned to the shelves.

Filed under: Advocacy, News