June 1, 2023 Event Update

Tickets to the RECEPTION for the Rally for the Right to Read were limited to 300 and are now sold out. Ample space is available for the PROGRAM portion of the event, with keynote from Dr. Ibram X. Kendi! Please join us at 6 pm. No ticket is needed, although an ALA Annual Conference badge or a receipt for conference registration is required for admission. Other details for the Rally for the Right to Read event are below.

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Join us to honor the courage and resilience of America's librarians and their persevering work to protect the freedom to read. A two-hour program featuring national leaders in the fight against censorship will be followed by a catered reception. Seats for the program are widely available, however reception space is limited to 300 and tickets are now sold out.

An ALA Annual Conference badge or a receipt for conference registration (printed or visible on a mobile device) is required for admission.

ALA and Unite Against Book Bans (UABB) thank EBSCO Information Services, Ingram Content Group, and Penguin Random House for their generous support of this event. Attendees who donate to Unite Against Book Bans or the LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund between May 1 and June 27 will be entered into a raffle for prizes provided by Penguin Random House, with winners announced following the event.

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Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Keynote Speaker

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is a National Book Award-winning author of fourteen books for adults and children, including nine New York Times bestsellers—five of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers. He is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor. Dr. Kendi is the author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest author to win that award. He has also authored the international bestseller How to Be an Antiracist; How to Be a (Young) Antiracist, co-authored with Nic Stone; Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored with Jason Reynolds; and Antiracist Baby, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky; and edited Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, with Keisha Blain. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant. Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America, adapted and illustrated by Joel Christian Gill, and the paperback of How to Raise an Antiracist will both be released on June 6th, 2023.

2023 Intellectual Freedom Award Recipients

2023 Roll of Honor, Pat Scales
2023 Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award, Emily Knox
2023 John Phillip Immroth Award, Amanda Jones
2023 the Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Chapter Relations Award, Michigan Library Association

Anti-Censorship Advocates, Panel Discussion

Becky Calzada, District Library Coordinator, Leander (Tex.) Independent School District
Leila Little Green, Lead Plaintiff, lawsuit challenging the Llano County (Tex.) Library Board and Commissioners’ Court
Jamie M. Gregory, Upper School Librarian and Journalism/Newspaper Teacher, Christ Church Episcopal School (S.C.)

A Rally for the Right to Read: Uniting for Libraries & Intellectual Freedom