Efforts to ban, censor, or even burn literature are the current political gimmick being exploited by the extreme religious right.
The most frequent instigators in nearly all censorship cases have historically been extremist religious groups. Many books facing bans today are targeted over religiously-rooted discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, as well over religious objections to content such as sex education and even blasphemy. Many other titles are banned to perpetuate white Christian nationalist versions of history, silencing and erasing minority groups. We at Secular AZ stand for intellectual freedom and believe that the oppression of any minority impacts all others – humanists, atheists, and religious minorities included.
So we’ve decided to launch a banned book drive!
We’re looking for donations of banned books to take with us to the March 12th-13th Tucson Festival of Books. The books will be offered at our booth for a name-your-price donation.
We’ll continue to collect through Banned Books Week in September and – if enough books come in – make more books available to students via future giveaways!
Here’s how you can help:
- Visit our banned books wish list on Amazon.
- Find titles of banned books from lists like here, here, and here; buy books, recycle from your own collection, or collect titles from friends and family.
- Contact us at info@secularaz.org to arrange a pickup/dropoff. Alternately, you can bring it to us at the Tucson Festival of Books, or have it shipped to Secular Coalition for Arizona, PO Box 19258 Phoenix, AZ 85005-9258!
We’d also love to hear about your favorite banned titles and why you love them. Take a photo with your fave and email it to us to share on social media! Or if you’re handy with photo editing, use our custom overlay here to make a post like the one below!
