To kick off its holiday season, Lerner Publishing Group mixed up books and music for 200 people on December 5, hosting its Bands for the Banned event at the Seventh Street Entry at First Avenue in Minneapolis. The concert, organized by the children's publisher, raised funds for three organizations: EveryLibrary’s Fight for the First anti-censorship campaign; We Are Stronger Than Censorship; and the American Library Association’s Unite Against Book Bans initiative. The total amount raised was not finalized by press time.
Bands for the Banned featured four headliner local bands—Dad Bod, Chutes, White Boy Summer, and Yonder—along with non-musical interludes by Patrick Sweeney, the cofounder and digital director of EveryLibrary, and Sam Helmick, the Iowa City public librarian and ALA president-elect. The event was conceived by Leo Lerner, LPG special sales associate, whose grandfather, Harry Lerner, founded LPG in 1959.
Urging people to both donate that night and take broader action to battle book bans in their communities, Sweeney described this as "a scary time for librarians, who are out there just trying to help children read" and receiving threats of violence in their emails and bullets in the mail. He noted that the threats of violence have extended beyond libraries, and that authors, publishers, and even those with Little Free Library boxes in front of their homes have been threatened.
Book bans are escalating, Sweeney added, with 128 bills in 29 states designed to restrict people's access to books and deny them the right to read. "Four thousand books are being banned across the country," he pointed out. "If you stacked these books on top of each other, it'd be higher than the Empire State Building—that's how many books are being banned."
Helmick, noting that they play bass guitar in addition to their library work, told the crowd crowd that they wanted to share “two dark truths: our stories are being erased” due to book bans and “our most vulnerable neighbors are increasingly targeted and censored by this. The second truth is that vital conversations about inclusion and diversity are being weaponized against libraries in order to dismantle publicly funded services that transform thousands of lives every single day.”
Describing the ALA’s Unite Against Book Bans initiative as a “clearing house” of tools and resources designed to “amplify” the voices of those who speak up against book bans, Helmick concluded their remarks by declaring that they had “three big truths to share: we can fight censorship together. We have incredible music wherever we go, as we do. And together, we're going to win.”
