Operation Caged Bird

I will be in Annapolis July 1-4 and was wondering if there's interest in joining me for a silent protest outside USNA Gate 1.

I was thinking about making the following sign:
"BLACKS AND WOMEN REMOVED FROM PROMOTION LIST. WHY?"

I'm flexible on times but moreso on July 1 and 4.
Thanks.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EYHfAMjtk/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Margaret Atwood, the 86-year-old Canadian novelist and poet, is pictured here attempting to burn an 'unburnable' copy of her novel "The Handmaid's Tale" with a flamethrower. A single unburnable copy was created to raise awareness about increasing censorship; her dystopian science fiction novel, which centers around one woman's quest for freedom in a totalitarian theocracy where women's rights are completely suppressed, has been the subject of numerous censorship challenges since its publication in 1985.

The unburnable copy was auctioned off after her flamethrowing attempt, raising $130,000 for PEN America, a literary and free expression advocacy organization. As Atwood famously asserted in her poem "Spelling": "A word after a word after a word is power."

To learn how to take action against book bans, visit PEN America's website at https://pen.org/book-bans/book-ban-resources/

For books for tweens and teens about girls living in real-life oppressive societies with little respect for freedom of expression, visit our blog post "The Fragility of Freedom: Mighty Girl Books About Life Under Authoritarianism" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=32426

Atwood’s classic dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale” is available at https://www.amightygirl.com/the-handmaid-s-tale

There is also a t-shirt featuring the iconic artwork from the novel’s first edition for teens and adults at https://www.amightygirl.com/the-handmaid-s-tale-t-shirt

To introduce kids to the power of their own words, we recommend the 'IlluStory Create Your Own Book Kit' for ages 5 to 10 (https://www.amightygirl.com/make-your-own-book-kit) and the creative writing guide "Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly" for ages 8 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/writing-magic)

3,743 unique titles were removed from public school libraries during the 2024-2025 school year.

Of those, 29% were nonfiction books, up from 14% the previous school year.

Nonfiction Book Bans Are on the Rise. Here Are Some of the Most-Books Banned in Schools Nationwide Nonfiction book bans are rising in public schools according to a recent report from PEN America, with the genre making up 29% of 3,743 unique titles banned during the 2024-2025 school year. See a list of some of the banned titles.

Yeah!!!

Latest shipment of banned books out to:
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Washington, DC
- St. Louis Missouri
- Elliottsburg, Pennsylvania
- Whiteville, NC
- Massapequa, NY
- Manhattan, Kansas
- Bonner Springs, Kansas
- Fergus Falls, Minnesota
- Boonsboro, Maryland

Thank you The Blacklisted Bookshelf!

This is us 🤜🏼🤛🏼

Dolly Parton’s free book program plans to expand in Tarrant, improve early literacy
READ MORE: bit.ly/4w28dae

Need a banned book?
We’re shipping banned books for FREE to all students and veterans.
The Old Fox Books & Coffeehouse
The Blacklisted Bookshelf
Www.operationcagedbird.com

Mensaje en español 👇 Hello. This is the Instagram for the blacklisted bookshelf little free library in san marin in Novato. We cater to banned books and challeneged books ONLY. Don't live in Novato? Still want to fight the system? Use the request form in the linktree and as soon as I find them I will ship them to you. Got a few bucks for shipping? Great there is a gofundme listed too Don't have a few bucks for shipping? That's cool too I'm gonna send it to you anyway! LOCALS FOLKS: Have a request? Leave it in the library. I'll do my best. Why provide these books in liberal California? Because this is not a liberal neighborhood. I want to be on the right side of history. Join me .................. Hola. Esta es la cuenta de Instagram de la Blacklisted Bookshelf Little Free Library en San Marin, en Novato. Nos dedicamos ÚNICAMENTE a libros prohibidos y cuestionados. ¡Y sí, también tenemos una biblioteca en español! ¿No vives en Novato? ¿Igual quieres luchar contra el sistema? Usa el formulario de solicitud en el linktree y en cuanto encuentre los libros te los envío. ¿Tienes unos dólares para el envío? Perfecto, hay un GoFundMe disponible también. ¿No tienes dinero para el envío? ¡No pasa nada, te lo voy a mandar de todas formas! GENTE LOCAL: ¿Quieres un libro? Déjame tu pedido en la biblioteca. Haré lo posible por conseguirlo. ¿Por qué ofrecer estos libros en la “liberal” California? Porque este NO es un vecindario liberal. Quiero estar del lado correcto de la historia. Únete a mí #ireadbannedbooks #resist #wholiveswhodieswhotellsyourstory #rightsideofhistory #banned #books #learnfromhistory

It always starts with books.

On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building -- seat of the German parliament -- was set ablaze. Within hours, Hi**er convinced President Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending fundamental civil liberties including freedom of speech, press, and assembly. This single emergency decree gave the N**i regime sweeping powers to shut down newspapers, silence opposition voices, and arrest political opponents without trial. It marked the beginning of a systematic dismantling of democratic rights that would define the totalitarian state. The suppression of free expression would soon take a more symbolic but equally chilling form.

Within three months, the regime had moved from silencing living voices to destroying written ones: on May 10, 1933, N**i Party students burned 20,000 books on Berlin's Bebelplatz, a site now marked by 'The Empty Library' memorial. This subterranean installation, created by artist Micha Ullman in 1995, consists of empty white bookshelves visible through a glass plate set into the cobblestones, designed to hold approximately the same number of books as were burned at this site. When visitors look down through the glass panel, they see "what is missing": underground, almost out of sight, no books, empty white shelves, directly under the Bebelplatz. Nearby, a bronze plaque bears Heinrich Heine's prophetic 1820 quote: "Where you burn books, you end up burning men" -- words that gained terrible significance during the Holocaust.

The book burning that inspired this memorial was a pivotal event in the evolution of N**i censorship and repression. On May 10, 1933, approximately 40,000 people gathered in what was then called Opernplatz as 5,000 far-right students affiliated with the N**i Party marched with burning torches to ignite piles of books which had been seized from the Humboldt University library, public libraries and private collections throughout Berlin, and the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science).

A month earlier, the N**i German Student Association had announced a nationwide initiative "against the un-German spirit" and directed local chapters to collect books from a list of 4,000 titles that the N**i Party had deemed "objectionable" for a "säuberung" or cleansing by fire. Among the books burned that night included works by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Helen Keller, H.G. Wells, Thomas Mann, Upton Sinclair, Ernest Hemingway, and many others.

This was not an isolated incident -- N**i student groups carried out similar public burnings in 34 university towns across Germany over the next several weeks, in particular targeting democratic, leftist, and Jewish literature. When they ran out of "objectionable material" from their university libraries to burn, they would raid public libraries and bookstores. In response, Helen Keller, whose books were blacklisted, wrote to German students: "You may burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas those books contain have passed through millions of channels and will go on."

As author Margaret Atwood later observed: "Censorship is always about who's allowed to speak, and who isn't. And that's always political. A word after a word after a word is power."

If we don't stand up to such censorship and assaults on freedom of speech today, we risk walking the same path that led to some of history's darkest moments.

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For powerful books for tweens and teens about girls living in real-life oppressive societies with little respect for freedom of expression, visit our blog post "The Fragility of Freedom: Mighty Girl Books About Life Under Authoritarianism" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=32426

For an inspiring book about a Mighty Girl fighting against censorship in school, we highly recommend "Ban This Book" for ages 9 to 12 at https://www.amightygirl.com/ban-this-book

For two excellent books about Mighty Girls who find hope by reading forbidden books - both for ages 12 and up - we recommend "Voices" (https://www.amightygirl.com/voices) and "The Book Thief" (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-book-thief)

For books for children and teens about the importance of standing up for truth, decency, and justice, even in dark times, visit our blog post, "Dissent Is Patriotic: 50 Books About Women Who Fought for Change," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14364

To see more stories from A Mighty Girl, you can sign-up for A Mighty Girl's free email newsletter at https://www.amightygirl.com/forms/newsletter