Texas county reverses classification of Indigenous history book as fiction [View all]
Source: The Guardian
Wed 23 Oct 2024 09.11 EDT
Last modified on Wed 23 Oct 2024 10.10 EDT
A Texas county reversed its decision to place Colonization and the Wampanoag Story, a children’s history book about the Native American experience, in the fiction category at local libraries. The decision drew the ire of the world’s largest publishers, literary freedom groups and many community members.
The Texas community of Montgomery county, near Houston, reclassified the book after creating a citizen review committee, making the committee’s meetings secret and removing librarians from deliberations – changes driven by a conservative Christian group.
“The recent decision by commissioner-appointed committee members has outraged not just our community, but the country as a whole,” said Teresa Kenney, a Montgomery county resident and founder of the Village Books store, at a recent meeting of county leaders. “Nowhere in the approved policy is it under the committee’s purview to determine whose history is fact or fiction,” she added.
Texas is second in the nation in banning books, with more than 1,500 titles removed from 2021 to 2023, according to PEN America, a literary freedom non-profit. Only Florida has banned more, with 5,100 titles removed.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/23/texas-indigenous-book-montgomery-libraries
REFERENCE - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143326064
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