East Tennessee students hold rally against book bans in downtown Knoxville

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. ( WATE ) — More than 100 parents, teachers and students marched through downtown Knoxville Wednesday afternoon to protest book bans.

The group started at the corner of Union Avenue and Gay Street and marched into Market Square.

The rally happened a few weeks after an expansion of the Age Appropriate Materials Act took effect, a Tennessee state law that requires all school library books to be, “suitable for age and maturity levels of the students who may access the materials.”

Charlotte Tiffany is going into her senior year at the University of Tennessee, studying to become a teacher. She is also a part of East Tennessee Freedom Schools, the group that planned the rally.

“We like to talk about how books are windows and mirrors,” she said. “Mirrors are like, you can see yourself in a book, and windows are you can see other people in those books, and there are a lot of books where some of these kids aren’t going to be able to see themselves mirrored in those books because they’re being banned.”

Critics of the law fear it could exclude the perspectives of marginalized groups in books. This is a concern for 11th grader Tanyah Brabson.

“Without the books telling about our culture and what we went through, I feel like that’s really bad because then you don’t know who you are, what your ethnicity means to everyone around you and especially you,” Brabson said.

The law also prohibits materials containing nudity or, “descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse.”

“If parents don’t want their kids to read a book, they can stop their kids from reading whatever book, that’s their choice, but it shouldn’t be something where a select few people decide what any child can read or cannot read,” Tiffany said.

After marching into Market Square, students read aloud excerpts of books that have been banned in other states’ school districts, including ‘The Giving Tree’ and ‘The Lorax.’

Knox County Schools voted last week to update its library policy to be compliant with the law. Each school board is required to adopt a district policy for developing and reviewing the school library collections. School must keep a list of all library materials and publish it online.

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