COC and NEA offer tools for change at #DefendBlackHistory Summit March 9 in Charlotte
By Color Of Change staff
More than 200 people are expected to gather in Charlotte, North Carolina, on March 9 for the #DefendBlackHistory Summit hosted by Color Of Change in conjunction with the National Education Association.
The free, half-day summit will offer enhanced tools to local leaders, parents, students, educators and advocates from the region to build collective power to fight against the erasure of Black history and efforts to ban books in schools and libraries.
“Sometimes it takes an event, such as a school board banning books, for us to identify (with an issue) and come together to fight back,” said Erica Mateo, COC’s deputy senior campaign director. “Maybe the ban on ‘The Bluest Eye’ will get you to go to your first school board meeting. But then you’re involved and you understand the power of school boards. And you begin contributing by giving public comments (at the school board meeting) and introducing resolutions, voting in school board elections and maybe even running for a school board seat.
“The book bans are a cultural entry point where the sensational leads people into the spaces where this is happening. And then they can work for change,” she said.
From July 2021 to June 2023, PEN America recorded more than 5,890 separate instances of book bans in 247 public school districts across the country. The works of more than 2,000 Black and LGBTQ authors and people of color, including Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison, who wrote “The Bluest Eye,” have been removed from school libraries and stricken from classroom curricula.
While Florida and Texas notoriously lead the pack of states outlawing books, the bans have spread to 41 states across the nation, including to states in the Southeast such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. COC and NEA hope the summit will bring together thought leaders, organizers, educators and parents to collectively build power, network, take action and strategize on how to defend Black history and protect the quality of education in schools. Special opening remarks will be offered at the summit by COC President Rashad Robinson and NEA President Rebecca S. “Becky” Pringle.
“When we come together and arm ourselves with the tools to fight against the erasure of Black history, we create a world where our students can thrive,” Mateo said.
The #DefendBlackHistory Summit builds on virtual workshops hosted last year by COC and the NEA that drew more than 2,000 registrants. The in-person summit in Charlotte will be held Saturday, March 9, and will provide more in-depth opportunities for discussion and exchange.
“Charlotte is one of the places where bills have been introduced to ban books and curriculum on Black history,” Mateo said. “So it’s important for folks to come out and get trained on how to take action and to meet other folks who are taking action. It’s a way to build local power.”
Last fall, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system leadership banned educators from participating in “Banned Books Week.” The weeklong event in early October, observed annually across the nation by the American Library Association, celebrates the freedom to read and brings attention to attempts to censor books.
Principals in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools reportedly were directed to cancel any events, readings, announcements or displays related to Banned Books Week because they weren’t aligned with the districts’ academic curricula and could be viewed as a violation of a parents’ rights law that became effective earlier in 2023 that prohibits books or instruction on anything involving gender identity for students in kindergarten through fourth grade. The directive was rescinded, however, once news circulated nationally about the school system’s restriction.
Mateo said fighting book bans on the local level will have an impact on other areas under assault by the right wing.
“Cultural conservatives are doing a great job at getting people upset about books in schools and libraries and then spinning that into attacks on affirmative action,” she said. COC and the NEA are committed to fighting back.
“When we can help a local organizer (to defend Black history in schools) by building an email and contact list of 1,000 people locally, and where they can continue to build relationships and give updates, I think that’s powerful.”
Want to go? Or know someone you think would be interested in attending the #DefendBlackHistory Summit on Saturday, March 9, in Charlotte? Click here for more information and to register.