[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 50 (Thursday, March 21, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2497-S2498]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Freedom of Speech

  Ms. BUTLER. Mr. President, today, I rise to honor Women's History 
Month and to once again bring attention to the destructive practice of 
book banning taking place all across our Nation.
  At this time, I am also going to be joined by my esteemed colleague, 
Senator Tina Smith from Minnesota.
  Our Nation's literature serves as a mirror, a window, and a door to 
endless possibilities, fueling our imagination, fostering empathy, and 
challenging us to think critically about our beliefs and values. To 
many young Americans, opening a book with characters who resemble them 
and their lived experiences is the very essence of our Nation's 
commitment to freedom of thought. These stories highlight the voices of 
everyday Americans who often go unheard.
  Let me put the horrors of these book bans in context. PEN America 
provides a comprehensive overview of the increase in book bans across 
U.S. schools during the 2021 to 2022 school year. It reveals a 
significant rise in instances of censorship, with over 2,500 cases 
affecting nearly 1,650 unique titles. Most of these bans are driven by 
organized groups targeting books that explore LGBTQ+ themes and racial 
issues.
  Adding on to this, in 2022, the American Library Association 
documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources, marking 
the highest number of attempted book bans in over 20 years and nearly 
doubling the count from 2021. A significant 38-percent increase was 
observed in the number of unique titles targeted, with the majority 
concerning LGBTQIA+ topics or authored by individuals from diverse 
racial backgrounds.
  The worst part is that these challenges are increasingly initiated by 
groups rather than individuals, with a shift toward targeting multiple 
titles at once. It is the new veneer by which historical revisionists 
intend to erode the history of our people.
  I am all but obligated to ensure that all forms of expression remain 
unrestrained. Just as rivers carve the landscapes of America, 
literature has the profound capacity to shape the minds and lives of 
America's youth. These stories flow through their consciousness, 
eroding old biases, watering seeds of new ideas, and guiding them along 
the path of self-discovery. In navigating these waters, young people 
learn to understand and embrace their identities, recognize their place 
in a larger narrative, and appreciate the diversity of the human 
experience.
  Literature, in its boundless forms, acts as a river--constantly 
moving, shaping, and transforming the selfhood of our youth, guiding 
them toward the vast ocean of their potential.
  Growing up in rural Mississippi and as the descendant of 
sharecroppers, my journey echoes the narratives of resilience and 
perseverance that are deeply rooted in American history, and so I found 
solace reading the words of the great Maya Angelou--one of our Nation's 
quintessential civil rights leaders and one of its most prolific 
writers. With her profound literary and societal contributions, Angelou 
left an indelible mark across America.
  Angelou's voice, particularly through her autobiography ``I Know Why 
the Caged Bird Sings,'' offers deep insights into the human condition, 
advocating for civil rights and female empowerment. Yet, proponents of 
book banning do not believe that her story and her perspective have a 
place in our national narrative.
  ``I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' is set against the backdrop of 
the rural South, providing a poignant exploration of Angelou's own 
experiences growing up as a Black girl in America during the Great 
Depression of the 1930s and 1940s. Her words encapsulate the essence of 
American beauty.

[[Page S2498]]

  It is not just the triumphs but also the struggles that shape us, 
guiding our paths to becoming who we are meant to be. ``I Know Why the 
Caged Bird Sings'' is a testament to the human spirit's capacity for 
resilience, for transformation, and for triumph over adversity, making 
it a timeless and essential piece of literature. Every child in this 
Nation should have the opportunity to read it if they are truly to 
understand the history of the United States.
  In her writing, Maya Angelou offers:

       Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being 
     ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of 
     my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I 
     knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet 
     to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High 
     School. I began to cut classes, to walk in Golden Gate Park 
     or wander along the shiny counter of the Emporium Department 
     Store. When Mother discovered that I was playing truant, she 
     told me that if I didn't want to go to school one day, if 
     there were no tests being held, and if my school work was up 
     to standard, all I had to do was tell her and I could stay 
     home. She said that she didn't want some white woman calling 
     her up to tell her something about her child that she didn't 
     know. And she didn't want to be put in the position of lying 
     to a white woman because I wasn't woman enough to speak up. 
     That put an end to my truancy, but nothing appeared to 
     lighten the long gloomy day that going to school became. To 
     be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to 
     experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the 
     threat of eternal indecision.
       Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the 
     vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes 
     easier to die and avoid conflicts than to maintain a constant 
     battle with the superior forces of maturity. Until recently 
     each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to 
     the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the 
     punishment meted out by the older generation (which had 
     itself confessed to the same crime short years before).
       The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the 
     faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth. The 
     bright hours when the young rebelled against the descending 
     sun had to give way to twenty-four-hour periods called 
     ``days'' that were named as well as numbered. The Black 
     female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common 
     forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the 
     tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical 
     hate and Black lack of power. The fact that the adult 
     American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often 
     met with amazement, distaste, and even belligerence. It is 
     seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won 
     by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic 
     acceptance.

  To those advancing the banning of books, I ask you to pause and 
reflect on a moment when a book truly spoke to you. Let that memory 
guide you to understand the power of literature, not just as a mirror 
of society but as a builder of empathy and understanding across diverse 
experiences. Consider the richness these narratives bring to our 
collective understanding and the importance of keeping that diversity 
accessible for all.
  Literature, like rivers carving landscape, shapes the minds and lives 
of our youth, guiding them toward self-discovery and empowering them to 
embrace their identities.
  Maya Angelou's work exemplifies the resilience and strength of 
marginalized communities--of the community of Black women--offering 
profound insights into the human experience.
  I urge my colleagues to reflect on the transformative power of 
literature and to join me on the Senate floor to read an excerpt from a 
banned book that changed their lives but has since been banned from the 
lives of others.
  May we continue to strive for a future where every voice is heard and 
every story is valued. May America read freely.
  Now I turn to my colleague, Senator Smith from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak out about the absurd 
book bannings that are happening in schools across our country. I want 
to thank Senator Butler for inviting me to speak today about this 
issue.
  You know, I was reflecting, as I was listening to Senator Butler 
speak in the beginning, about what reading meant to me when I was a 
young person and when I was first understanding what it felt like to be 
immersed in a book that I loved--that feeling of learning, of being 
able to imagine myself living different lives, being able to think 
about what different experiences would be like, and understanding that 
my life was not everybody's life, that there is such diversity of life 
in this world, and being exposed to that through reading was so 
exciting to me.
  Also, as I was seeing how I was not like everybody else, I was also 
able to see myself in the people whom I read about--both my own 
struggles as well as triumphs in the stories that I read--and that is 
the gift of reading. So to think about the absurdity of trying to block 
that gift from people because of one's own views about what is OK and 
what is not OK is, I think, what is at issue here.
  So I appreciate very much having the opportunity to read into the 
Record incredible authors whose works have been unfairly banned.
  To my colleagues, I think it is interesting that, just last week, the 
American Library Association released new data documenting how 
prevalent this is. They are documenting book challenges that are 
happening throughout the United States, and they found a huge surge in 
these challenges--a 65-percent increase in challenges to books just in 
2023. It is the highest level the ALA has ever recorded.
  Among the books that were banned last year is a book called ``And 
Tango Makes Three.'' This is a book by Justin Richardson and Peter 
Parnell. It is a demonstration of the absurdity of banning books--this 
book in particular. It is based on the real story of two penguins in 
the Central Park Zoo who create a family and raise a chick together. 
Both of these penguins were male, and so a Florida school district 
banned the book because of their State's ``don't say gay'' law. Now I 
am going to read a bit of the text because I think it shows so much. 
Here we go.

       [C]hildren and their parents aren't the only families at 
     the zoo. The animals make families of their own. There are 
     red panda bear families, with mothers and fathers and furry 
     red panda bear cubs. There are monkey dads and monkey moms 
     raising noisy monkey babies. There are toad families, and 
     toucan families, and cotton-top tamarin families too.
       And in the penguin house there are penguin families. Every 
     year at the very same time, the girl penguins start noticing 
     the boy penguins. And the boy penguins start noticing the 
     girls. When the right girl and the right boy find each other, 
     they become a couple.
       Two penguins in the penguin house were a little bit 
     different. One was named Roy, the other was named Silo. Roy 
     and Silo were both boys. But they did everything together.
       They bowed to each other. And they walked together. They 
     sang to each other. And [they] swam together.
       They didn't spend much time with the girl penguins, and the 
     girl penguins didn't spend much time with them. Instead, Roy 
     and Silo wound their necks around each other. Their keeper 
     Mr. Gramzay noticed the two penguins and thought to himself, 
     ``They must be in love.''

  Now, I have four grandchildren, and I think that reading a story like 
this to them--reading this story to them--is exactly what should be 
happening as children and people of all ages really think about what it 
means to love one another, what it means to be a family, and how we can 
come together in that idea rather than being driven apart.
  I hope and will do everything I can to make sure that my four 
grandchildren live in a future where books that affirm that families 
can come in all different forms and in all different shapes and sizes 
aren't considered worth banning.
  I thank Senator Butler for organizing this discussion.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use a prop 
during my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.