October is Library Month, and we are pleased to present this documentary which pulls back the curtain on two of the most controversial issues in the U.S.A. today: book bans and curriculum censorship in public schools.
BANNED TOGETHER follows three students as they fight to reinstate 97 books suddenly pulled from their school libraries. As they evolve from local to national activists, they meet with banned authors, politicians, and the major players protecting the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Woven throughout the story about the student activists include Congressman Jamie Raskin; bestselling and banned authors like Juno Dawson, Jodi Picoult, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Erika L. Sánchez, and Ellen Hopkins; First Amendment warriors like Jonathan Friedman from PEN America and Deborah Caldwell-Stone from the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom; Prof. Justin Hansford, the Executive Director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University School of Law; Olivia Little, a senior investigative researcher from Media Matters for America who's done in-depth reporting about Moms for Liberty since early 2021; organizations fighting on the front lines in Florida; Maurice Cunningham, author of "Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization"; and IL Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias who wrote the first anti-book-ban legislation in the country; and many more.
1 hour 32 minutes. In English. Courtesy of Kanopy.
