Texas Freedom to Read Project

GOOD news out of Montgomery County (Texas) for once! Grateful for your courage and willingness to call out censorship, Rhea!

Ousted library director wins $475,000 settlement in discrimination lawsuit against Montgomery County | Houston Public Media The lawsuit filed last year by Rhea Young alleged she was fired in retaliation for refusing to segregate and limit access to books containing LGBTQ+ themes or ideas.

🚩 The state is reportedly threatening to disband the SBOE if they refuse to pass TEA’s reading list. 🚩

Pretty sure this is NOT what democracy looks like.

Limited state government and local control, in Texas, are dead. 🪦

“Not in our Texas.” 🫶🫶🫶

New in town 🙌 (and by “in town,” I mean at the Deer Park ISD board meeting protesting book bans!)

‼️Tomorrow, Salado!‼️

Edit 4/26 late evening; ICTX will NOT be at SPL tmrw. We had originally planned to go to the Salado Library for a book banning protest, but they won’t be voting on books tomorrow after all--they voted last week at the special meeting.

Instead of being at the Belton courthouse or Salado library tomorrow, [Indivisible Centex] will be supporting the STOP TEMPLE DATA CENTERS group working to stop the data centers being built in Temple.

Their protest is from 5pm-8pm, we’ll be there from 5:30pm-6:30pm. It’s on the corner of HK Dodgen and 31st street.

Sorry for any inconvenience, there’s just so much going on and we are trying to provide support wherever we can.

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We will be at the Salado Public Library TOMORROW 4/27 at 4:30PM! See you there 🫡

Stop Book Bans! Join us to defend the freedom to read as the SPL Board of Trustees review book challenges.

Salado Public Library Board Meeting
Monday, April 27th @ 5:00PM

A person's beliefs should not matter more than the general public's right to make choices for themselves [and their children]. We respect parents' rights to monitor and regulate their own child's access to materials, but do not believe those rights extend to anyone else.

If you are able, please attend this meeting and register to give public comment. Support the board in their previous decisions to NOT ban books.

Together, we can defend the freedom to learn, the right to information, and the joy of reading for every person in our community.

All are welcome—bring your energy, your signs, and commitment to protecting our libraries. Participants of all backgrounds are encouraged to attend. ✊

You are still more than welcome to go speak at the library board meeting! Sign up to speak @ https://tinyurl.com/5de7dbcb

Sign ups will close 30 minutes before the meeting starts. You will be able to sign up online or in person.

No. Round Rock ISD is not “replacing the Holy Bible with the Koran.” 🙄

Islam is just the latest boogeyman being used by the same politicians, political activists, and pressure groups who have been trying to assert control over our state and country for the past 5+ years. They’ve lost steam on “vaccines/masks” and “CRT” and “ LGBT” and “DEI,” so they’re moving on to “Sharia Law.”

Don’t fall for the lies and fear mongering.

See it for what it is- and call 👏🏻 it 👏🏻out.👏🏻 These attacks and accusations being hurled at Muslims and Islam are hateful and Islamophobic.

🕵🏼Fact check provide by Texas Freedom to Read Cofounder, .strong

Whatcha up to Conroe ISD? Why you acting so shady? Why not talk about the books you’re rejecting and why, in an open meeting- for transparency’s sake? 👀👀👀

At the March Conroe ISD board meeting, new library acquisitions were tabled until April. The document included in the March board packet was marked as “Posted February 11, 2026 – March 11, 2026.” When the list reappeared in April, it carried the exact same posting dates.

But it was not the same. Between March and April, books quietly disappeared off the list.

Thanks to community member Mark Brooks for bringing this to light, we now know that titles were removed without explanation or transparency. Among them were elementary-level biographies of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders—books designed to help young readers understand the people shaping their world. Yet comparable titles on Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi remained.

Also removed was "Black Hands: Builders of Our Nation," a picture book by an award-winning author and illustrator that highlights the contributions of Black Americans to our country’s history. So too was "Not Nothing," a story about a young boy who forms an unexpected friendship with a Holocaust survivor while volunteering at a senior living facility—a book rooted in empathy, memory, and human connection.

Why were these and other books removed without acknowledgment and explanation? There was no note on the April list that indicated it had been amended. Why are these decisions being made out of view?

Transparency matters. Because what is taken away quietly speaks just as loudly as what is allowed to remain.

Do you have a May school board election?

Early voting is happening through April 28- including Saturday.

Election Day is May 2.

Let us know you’ve voted (💃🏼🕺🏽) or you have a plan and promise to vote (👍🏽) in the comments!

We’re a bit late posting about our wonderful time at The Texas Library Association Conference in March, but since this week is National Library Week, we wanted to share! . We met so many great librarians, authors, publishers, and vendors. And there’s no place we’d rather be fighting for the freedom to read than here in Texas! If you got one of our hats at the conference, don’t forget to tag us when you wear them. And if you weren’t able to snag one, we hope to make them available for purchase soon. And lastly, in celebration of National Library Week, stop by your local public or school library and thank a librarian, or email your local elected officials and tell them how important libraries are to your community. ❤️📚