Protests were out in full force against a far right-wing advocacy group holding their national summit in Philadelphia June 29-July 2. Self-proclaimed parental-rights group Moms for Liberty (M4L) held their “Joyful Warriors” summit at the Philadelphia Marriott...
Book Bans
Battle for the 2024 mom vote comes to Philadelphia
People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy group, is organizing demonstrations outside the Moms for Liberty conference with help from allied groups including the Campaign for Our Shared Future, MomsRising, and Red, Wine & Blue. A “Drag Queen Story Hour”...
The Book-Bans Debate Has Finally Reached a Turning Point
Across multiple fronts, Democrats and their allies are stiffening their resistance to a surge of Republican-led book bans. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the past month have conspicuously escalated their denunciations of the book bans...
Op-Ed: Lessons for Becoming a Public Scholar
Academics at many colleges and universities today face an uncertain future. Rising tuition and falling enrollments, the lack of tenure-track positions, the dwindling student interest in the humanities in favor of business and STEM degrees, and growing questions about...
Students, authors fight censorship in PA schools
About four hours before the Central Bucks School District passed a new library policy in July, local high school junior Lily Freeman warned a crowd of about 100 what would follow. The policy, passed by a 6-3 vote, targeted books with explicit or implied depictions of...
The day the book banners lost in Pennsylvania’s culture wars
If you ban it, they will come. For the better part of an hour Saturday, dozens of teenagers and their parents snaked around the towering stacks of tomes inside Kutztown’s Firefly Books and sometimes spilled onto the sidewalks of this quaint Berks County college town —...
Commentary: Banning books is a futile practice serving no deed
Last March, I was invited by Christine Pearl ’11 to facilitate a book club session on my second favorite Toni Morrison novel, “Beloved.” The session was an extension of the efforts of the nonprofit organization Red Wine & Blue, whose mission is to empower and...
‘Too Hyperbolic’? School Board Parental Rights Push Falters
State teachers unions have increased spending on their candidates, and grassroots groups including Red Wine and Blue have rallied liberal suburban parents.
PRESS RELEASE: On Day Education Board Meets to Enact DeSantis’ Extreme Agenda, FL Moms Release Six-Figure Ad Buy to Stand Up and Fight Back – Especially With Suburban Women
“We may just be moms, but come November, you’ll be just a former governor.” Suburbs across Florida, October 19, 2022 - Today, Red Wine & Blue released “Just Moms,” a new ad featuring Florida moms fighting back against Ron DeSantis’ education extremism. The ad,...
How to protect schools from right-wing extremists
Reader Commentary in the Balitmore Sun. My thanks to Dhruvak Mirani for his clear and extensive commentary on the current right-wing attacks on public education (“Don’t get distracted by Dan Cox; Maryland boards of education are under threat from right-wing...
Recent Posts
Read This: Get the Flock Out of Our Communities
If you’ve ever seen the movie Minority Report, you remember the dire warning the Tom Cruise sci-fi movie gave about fighting crime using high tech surveillance. But it’s not sci-fi anymore! There’s a disturbing rise in real-life surveillance that everyone needs to...
Do This: Another Step to Reclaiming Democracy
We spent America’s 250th looking forward to the future with Heather Cox Richardson, and hundreds of you made the patriotic commitment to reclaim our democracy from extremists in the 2026 midterm elections. Red Wine & Blue offers so many ways to get involved – from...
Do This: Reclaim our Democracy this July 4th
This weekend, America celebrates our 250th Independence Day. To get ready for this milestone, we took the Easy A actions of reading the Declaration of Independence together and pausing to consider the complicated meaning of July 4th for different Americans throughout...
Watch This: Frederick Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”
250 years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, putting to paper the American ideals of freedom, equality, and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But what did this declaration mean for indigenous and enslaved people in...
Read This: America’s Declaration of Independence on its 250th Anniversary
In just a few weeks, we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of our Declaration of Independence. As we celebrate this July 4th, let’s go back to school and study the primary source! Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, which was then...