Red Wine & Blue Civics

Book bans in school and public libraries have been drastically increasing over the past few years. In 2024, the American Library Association tracked 821 book challenges of 2,452 unique titles. Year after year, these challenges far exceed the numbers we saw before 2020 — because this isn’t about your community, book bans are a national political strategy to divide us. Extremists are banning books about Anne Frank, Ruby Bridges, Martin Luther King Jr., LGBTQ kids, climate change, and more. They want to control what our children read and learn, but the VAST majority of us do not support book bans. We want our children to have access to a wide range of voices and stories to read. As Book Ban Busters, we help you fight book bans in your community by providing Troublemaker Trainings, local organizing support, our Banned Book Club, and Banned Bookmobile kits. We give you the tools you need to work with school boards, legislators, and neighbors to ensure kids in your community have access to age-appropriate books.

Extremists want to undermine public education and control what kids and families believe, do, read, and learn. On top of banning books, they want to keep our kids from learning accurate history. They want to control public school curriculum and remove discussions of race, social and emotional learning, and sex education. They are running to take over school boards, attacking teachers and administrators, and diverting taxpayer dollars from our public schools to unregulated private schools through voucher programs. Mainstream parents know how valuable our public schools are to our community, and the kids are counting on us to protect their ability to get a well-rounded education. So we’re helping you organize locally to support and protect your public schools. Through our educational events, Troublemaker Trainings, and local groups in the RWB Network, you’ll be prepared to speak at school board meetings and advocate for public education with lawmakers.

We all want our kids — no matter what gender they are — to thrive in safe environments free from bullying and discrimination, with access to mental health support if they need it. But extremists have used trans kids as a national political issue to confuse and scare people. They have passed so many bans recently on transgender youth – participating in sports, receiving healthcare, using restrooms, what first names they’re allowed to use – all targeting a tiny minority of kids who deserve to grow up safe and supported like everyone else. Extremists have gone so far as to track kids’ menstrual cycles, permit body inspections for kids to play sports, ban teachers from displaying support for LGBTQ+ students, and even taking trans kids away from their parents. We have resources, like our “Showing up for the Trans Community” guide, that will prepare you to stand up for trans kids in your community.