When the ACLU team and I got to E. Shaver Booksellers Starland in Savannah, Georgia, we immediately were greeted with sunshine and humongous, centuries-old Southern oak trees. If that wasn’t beautiful enough, the bookshop itself had a water fountain in front, connected to a popular Savannah venue called “The Gingerbread House.”
The ACLU was in Georgia for the first stop of its premiere Know Your Rights Bus Tour where we hit the road – literally – with artists, influencers, advocates and community members to make sure voters know their rights and have a plan to vote. The tour has six stops and, at each stop, we’re highlighting several civil liberties issues that impact our most vulnerable communities.
In Georgia, we set up at this lovely bookshop to highlight the dangers of unconstitutional censorship. When we arrived at the bookstore, the ACLU team and I got right to work – bringing in boxes and boxes of voter information, ACLU swag, and banned books from “Twilight” to “The ABCs of Black History,” to give away to the Savannah community. While we unloaded, you could hear content creator Jameelah Jones and Seema Yasmin, author of the banned book ABCs of Queer History, discussing why it’s essential that people vote this year for our rights.
The ACLU launched its first-ever Know Your Rights Bus Tour so we could host the sort of dialogue that Jameelah and Seema were having amongst themselves with communities across the country. At 4:00 pm, we got to do just that. As Savannah community members piled in, they filled out a pledge to vote, picked up an infoguide on a voter activation event from the ACLU of Georgia, and waited to hear Seema read from her books the “ABCs of Queer History” and “Unbecoming.”
After the reading, Seema shared how her books, which featured LGBTQ+ and BlPOC characters, were being “soft banned” from libraries, classrooms, and stores. In her discussion with Jameelah and Sarah Hunt-Blackwell, the First Amendment policy advocate at the ACLU of Georgia, Seema highlighted how teachers would tell her that they were too scared to have her book in the classroom because they feared being punished by local school officials who are leading efforts to ban diverse materials from classrooms and libraries nationwide. Savannah residents were puzzled. Some even came up to me after the event to tell me they were shocked to find out that children's books were being censored.
It’s never easy to hear this going on in our local neighborhoods. At our next banned book event at Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia, Sarah, from the ACLU of GA, told attendees that banning books and limiting literacy education has historically been used to marginalize Black communities, saying, “the power of information and the power of education and knowledge is so grand that restricting it from certain populations was the only way to keep those populations discriminated against.” Sarah also highlighted why it’s important to protect our right to learn.
Armed with this information, community members felt empowered to take action. Seema asked the audience to use their power to affect change. "We rely on events like these, and people like yourselves, to spread information about the books and to organize so we [the LGBTQ+ community] can have a better future,” she said.
Later, attendees shared how the bus tour had inspired them to get involved. A member of the Booked Ban Club at the University of Georgia shared with me how they would use the information they learned to mobilize their supporters. In Savannah, a Black activist told me how he was part of the Crusade for Voters, and spent nights in jail and days at protests in the fight for Black Americans to have the right to vote, and how he is also calling for the next generation to use their right to vote. It was heartwarming to see the ACLU’s Know Your Rights Bus Tour continue a legacy of activism in Georgia and connect with community members in the state.
Our bus is now on the road to Philadelphia and Detroit for concerts, game shows and more to educate folks on civil liberties and the importance of voting. If you’re not able to catch us on tour, you can pledge to vote and learn more about how you can vote for your rights this year.
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