Steve Nuzum writes about viewing a recent film that documents student response to a book ban in Beaufort, South Carolina.
I recently participated in a panel at the University of South Carolina law school after a showing of the film Banned Together. The first film produced by the streaming service Kanopy (available through many libraries), the film focuses mainly on a student group responding to book bans in Beaufort.
Watching the film was a little surreal, because I know many of its subjects very well. These are the students and adults– including members of the Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization (DAYLO), Families Against Book Bans (FABB) and the South Carolina ACLU– I’ve worked with and watched testify at many State Board of Education meetings over the past few years.
These people and organizations deserve a spotlight, and I know that many of them fill that spotlight only reluctantly, driven by a passion for justice and equitable treatment.
The events of the film kick off in 2022, when two Beaufort residents challenged 97 books that they said were available in either school or classroom libraries in Beaufort. And it ends with Beaufort returning most of those books to the shelves, thanks in large part to the advocacy work from local organizations like DAYLO and FABB.
The student activism on display is powerful– no more so than when Superintendent Weaver is shown claiming that the students have been “misled” by adults into believing that books are being removed. (I was in the Board meeting when the Superintendent said that, and the quiet pushback from the majority in the room was palpable.)
That claim, which seems especially odd given how connected the students are to the reality of the situation in their schools, reminds me of the claims by Alabama that inspired Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. In their open letter regarding the demonstrations led by King and other Civil Rights leaders in Birmingham, the clergymen accused “outsiders” of leading demonstrations against segregated facilities and other forms of racial injustice. As with those 1960s demonstrations, the claim that “outside agitators” must be stirring up the community suggests that what the students had to say really struck a nerve.
As a district administrator says in the film, the students showed up to local board meetings prepared, with tight, 3-minute remarks that built on facts and ended with rational conclusions. In contrast, he says, the few proponents of removing the 97 books tended to ramble. And as the film documents, some of these proponents also broke board policy– by identifying student speakers by name during remarks– or even crossed the line into threats and harassment.