The massive outpouring was “unbelievable,” Foote says, but was also proof that many Texas residents were eager to push back against right-wing efforts to control and suppress literature for children and teens. In one day alone, 13,000 tweets were sent. They quickly created the #Freadomfighters hashtag and mounted a Twitter storm, urging parents, teachers, students, librarians and concerned Texans to tweet their legislators with pictures of books that help children and teens navigate race, racism, gender, gender identity and sexuality. “We felt we needed to speak out, support the right to read, and uplift librarians who might be feeling pressured to remove books from their shelves,” Carolyn Foote, a retired Texas librarian and spokesperson for told Truthout. Concerned about threats to intellectual freedom, a small group of librarians reached out to one another to discuss how best to respond. Matt Krause, Republican chair of the House General Investigation Committee, sent a letter to state education authorities asking them if their school libraries stocked any of the 850 “divisive” books on a list he’d compiled.
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