Meet the Librarian Battling Book Bans
Conservative groups around the country have been increasingly bold in banning books that they do not like within libraries and schools. Often those pushing book bans claim they are protecting children from dangerous reading materials.
Now, Amanda Jones, a Louisiana-based middle-school librarian who became the target of vicious death threats and harassment by a right-wing book-banning campaign, has decided to fight back. Not only has she sued her opponents, she has also written a tell-all book about her battle against the book banners called That Librarian.
Jones has been an educator for 22 years and is the president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, co-founder of the Livingston Parish Library Alliance to defeat censorship attempts in her community, and a founding member of the Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, which fights against censorship efforts across the state. She spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about her new book.
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.
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