Under This Bully, Not Even Libraries Are Safe
There’s no escaping Donald Trump. And I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way. Let’s face it, everyone needs an escape now and then — from work, kids, chores. And we all find that peace in different ways and different spaces: walking in nature, listening to music, snuggling up in a library corner with a book.
Even those who feel kindly toward our president must occasionally find him and his gift of being in your face 24/7 exhausting and relish a chance to recharge. I’m certain that Americans who aren’t in his fan club crave a rest, if only to find the energy to fight another day.
No safe space is free from the grip of the Trump administration, which is gobbling up more territory with each passing day.
The attack on libraries hits especially hard for a book nerd let loose with a library card at the age of 3. Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library was certainly my happy space and a needed escape when a large family in a modest rowhouse provided a little too much stimulation. And, oh, the surprises I found there: lectures, films and books I stumbled on that sated my curiosity on every topic, from science to politics.
What a quaint notion today, as some parents, with the support of an administration more interested in surveillance than freedom, snatch the very books that might excite a young imagination off shelves, the better to control the uncontrollable — a thirst for knowledge about people and places that don’t end at a neighborhood boundary.
My parents never put limits on what I read. If I was able to read it, I had their blessing. We would discuss complex notions and unfamiliar themes, with all of us learning things about the world and ourselves. It was so thrilling that I followed their example as best as I could with my own son, and he has a houseful of books to show for it.
This administration’s effort to silence those who would extol their wonders has hit communities and our nation’s military academies. Search the library shelves at the Naval Academy for a book that will transport you to someplace you’ve only dreamed about? Unless that book is on an approved list (Maya Angelou out, Mein Kampf in), you’d better buy your own, and fast, before publishing houses feel the wrath of Trump.
It has even hit the Library of Congress in Washington, a point of pride for the nation since it was founded in 1800. Its collection, with millions of books, films and video, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts, is the largest in the world.
It’s not a lending library in the usual sense but rather a resource and a repository of rare and important items in our nation’s history. It’s the main research arm of Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office.
When Dr. Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th librarian of Congress in 2016, she brought a wealth of acclaim and experience to the position, including years as CEO of my beloved Enoch Pratt Free Library. Those on both sides of the aisle praised the innovation and modernization that Hayden brought to the Library of Congress and the ways she made it more accessible for all Americans.
She was fired by the Trump administration in an email in which the esteemed Hayden, a woman and an African American, was called “Carla.” The disrespect might have been the point for an administration that denigrates Black Americans of distinction.
But it will take more than petty retaliation to defeat books.
A few years ago, I brought a class I was teaching to the Library of Congress, where the teens were in awe of the beauty of the main reading room in the Thomas Jefferson Building and excited when they learned how they could obtain their own library cards.
They instinctively knew the truth of what author Percival Everett said, that “the most subversive thing any of us can do is read.” When he expressed his displeasure with book bans, I found myself nodding along with an auditorium full of fellow book nerds.
Yes, it’s still my escape. Members of my book club, Zora’s Daughters, had taken a road trip May 15 to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to hear Everett discuss his life, career and Pulitzer Prize-winning book James, with a central character inspired by but far from the enslaved “Jim” of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
No doubt it would be on Trump’s list of banned books since it depicts a Black man as a flesh-and-blood human being whose life, along with the lives of family and friends, depends on his intelligence and empathy.
“It used to be we all wanted our children to be more educated than we are,” said Everett.
I realized he was talking about people like my parents, and I felt grateful.
Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. She is host of the CQ Roll Call "Equal Time with Mary C. Curtis" podcast. Follow her on X @mcurtisnc3.
Reprinted with permission from Roll Call.
