Today is National Read Across America Day, but it’s difficult to celebrate the joy of reading as we’re actively seeing books pulled from public schools and libraries in Texas and across the country. We’ve constructed a timeline of key events that have sought to diminish free education and diversity in thought. Together, we can stop this timeline before it grows. #TeachtheTruth […]
Recent Blogs
Teach the Truth: A Conversation with Jerry Craft
Numerous Black authors have watched as right-wing leaders ban their books from libraries and classrooms across the country, and in Texas, a state rep has launched an investigation targeting hundreds of titles. One book of the books on the list is Class Act by Jerry Craft. Craft sat down with us to discuss book banning, the impact of classroom censorship on his work, public school students, and the community as a whole. […]
Voting Rights in America: A Timeline
This Black History Month, the Texas Freedom Network and its program for young Texans, Texas Rising, are focusing on the decades-long fight that folks in the Black community have led to ensure the right to vote for everyone. […]
Is the SBOE Bringing the Circus to Town Again?
The Texas State Board of Education will rewrite state standards for history, government and other social studies courses this year. The last time this happened, in 2010, the whole process became — to put it bluntly — a circus. It embarrassed Texas before the eyes of the country and the world. That year, the board made hundreds of changes, often based not on facts but on personal political beliefs. The result is a set of standards that have been panned even by conservative think tanks as a “politicized distortion of history” that downplayed slavery as the cause of the Civil War, dismissed the separation of church and state, portrayed civil rights gains as having negative consequences, and much more. […]
Stop Using MLK to Whitewash our History
As we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today, the words “I have a Dream” come to mind. But in 2022, with the current Texas political climate, it’s critical that we remember all of Dr. King’s teachings and that his “dream” included ending white supremacy by seeking systemic change. […]
