Alderperson Denise Fenton's (District 6) Invocation At 02/02/2022 Common Council Meeting

Mayor Woodford: Tonight's invocation will be delivered by Alderperson Fenton.

Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6): I'm a reader. I come from a family of readers. When I was a child, I would hide in my closet with a towel stuffed under the door to hide the light so that I could read far past my bedtime.

While my parents didn't condone this behavior, they never really censored by reading even though there were pretty strict limits on movies and television.

My second-grade teacher gave me the greatest gift a bored child could get by marching down to the elementary school library and asking them to let me check out as many books as I wanted regardless of the grade level. As far as I know, the only lasting damage was that I might have gotten some information about Santa a bit early.

Beverly Cleary's Ramona showed me that there were other little girls who were too loud and too messy and wanted to know everything about the world right now. Judy Blume's characters had many of the same questions about life and growing up that I did when I was 12.

Books allow us to connect with characters who are like us but also, and maybe more importantly, with characters who are very different. James Baldwin said it this way "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me to that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive who had ever been alive.”

This is why it is really disturbing to read a story every day about an attempt to remove books from public libraries--not school libraries but public libraries. The mayor of Ridgeland Mississippi has withheld funding from the public library unless it removed books with LGBTQ things. A small central Texas library had to shut down for three days to conduct a court ordered review of every children's book in the collection. An attempt to ban a book from the Pela Iowa public library caused a heated debate at the city council meeting last month.

Overall, the American Library Association reported an unprecedented 333 book challenges, each of which can involve multiple books, last year. the words of John F. Kennedy over 60 years ago should continue to guide us today. "If this nation is to be wise as well as strong. If we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.”

So, as we move forward with plans for our new library let us have lively discussions about important issues like parking and green energy and landscaping. But let us take the advice of the American Library Association and oppose censorship in the partnership of our citizens and the professionals who curate collections that serve the information needs of all their users.