A group of Texas parents are organizing against book bans in the state’s schools

By BOTWC Staff

A group of Texas parents are organizing against book bans in the state’s schools, Black Enterprise reports. 

The Round Rock Black Parents Association is a group of over 400 Texas parents dedicated to organizing around issues impacting Black children. Recently, the mothers of the association have begun fighting back against book bans in their children’s schools.

A new proposed state law in Texas is attempting to remove the requirement to teach “the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong,” The Texas Tribune reports. 

The law is an extension over the national debate centered around how U.S. history is taught in school and books that address the history of racism and white supremacy in the United States. Now, Texas is attempting to squash those efforts by instituting laws that ban particular books in schools, a flashback to the era of slavery. 

One of those books is Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, written by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. The Round Rock Association is fighting for the book to remain a part of the school curriculum. The novel was remixed specifically for young children from Kendi’s original title Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Reynolds, the 2020/2021 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

“Taking away that book would have completely whitewashed history, and that’s not what we are for,” Ashley Walker, a Round Rock Association member, told reporters. 

So far, thousands of community members and educators have signed a petition to keep the book in schools, many parents going out and buying the book for their children just in case the district’s board of trustees didn’t honor their request. 

“In case the book did get banned, we still had people who were going out supporting this book and showing that we are truly about learning the full story,” said Walker. 

The Association has also created ACT, Anti-racists Coming Together, to further discuss the importance of diverse literature during local school board meetings. 

To learn more about the Round Rock Black Parents Association, visit their website.

Photo Courtesy of Charles Glenn Photography/Round Rock Black Parents Association