Red Wine & Blue Education Fund in Coalition with PEN America, Race Forward & Others Is Mobilizing Hundreds of Thousands Against Attempts to Ban Books
in Public Schools & Their Libraries
Suburbs Across America, February 3, 2022 – As suburban mothers from across the country step up to push back against an explosion of book bans in school districts, Red Wine & Blue Education Fund, the national grassroots community of suburban women, is connecting them all together in a national campaign: “Book Ban Busters.”
“Today marks the launch of an exciting and powerful effort to galvanize the energy of the hundreds of thousands of suburban women who have been stepping up in their own communities to protect their kids’ education and the country they love,” said Katie Paris, Red Wine & Blue Education Fund’s founder, and an Ohio suburban mom.
Suburban moms from Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina spoke about how right-wing politicians and outside groups are trying to exploit parents’ pandemic exhaustion to impose a political agenda on their kids and their schools.
“It’s clear that extremists have latched on to un-American book bans to fuel fear and divide communities as a political deflection tactic to hide how out of touch they are with the needs and values of suburban women,” said Paris. “Enough is enough. If you don’t want your kid to read a book – fine – but don’t take that opportunity from my kids.”
There are currently efforts to ban books across 44 states, particularly titles that focus on people of color and LGBT people. Red Wine & Blue Education Fund has energized more than 300,000 women across the country to fight disinformation, race-baiting, and attacks on our democracy. And it is now leading the Book Ban Busters campaign against book banning efforts in school districts.
The new campaign was launched even as the book-banning surge turned an ugly new corner with an organized book-burning campaign in Nashville this week. “This is horrifying, but hardly surprising,” said Paris. “There’s a straight line from book banning to book burning.”
Watch the press conference here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8dqbrsxrsrkkj6x/Book%20Ban%20Busters%20Telepresser%202.3.22.mp4?dl=0
In coalition with PEN America, Race Forward and others, Red Wine & Blue Ed Fund’s “Book Ban Busters,” campaign is mobilizing over a million social media followers and fighting back in three ways:
Tracking book bans and blowing the whistle everywhere: The launch of a national tracker for bans across the country, using data gathered from media monitoring and a crowdsourced and curated platform for members to flag bans in their communities.
Educating and training suburban moms: Expanding upon its “Troublemaker Trainings” program, Red Wine & Blue Education Fund has developed a Book Ban Busters curriculum to train parents on how to fight back against book bans with local school boards. It offers resources on how to organize parents within their communities, testify at school board meetings and get the word out about what’s going on in their schools.
Developing and sharing creative content: Red Wine Blue Education Fund will offer personal stories, videos, graphics, and memes to help suburban moms amplify work that’s happening on the ground.
Red Wine Blue Education Fund is also launching a Banned Book Club and a volunteer team of data moms to track the campaign’s victories.
For more information, visit Book Ban Busters.