Authors of color speak out against efforts to ban books on race

Authors like Kwame Alexander, Lulu Delcare and Sheetal Sheth are fighting against banned books amid critical race theory debate.

At the American Library Association, annual reports are collected to monitor efforts by parents and political groups to ban books from libraries and schools across the country.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of non-profit ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, has worked with such reports for about 20 years -- and she says she's never seen such a widespread effort to remove books on racial and gender diversity from the shelves the way she's seeing it right now.

"What we're observing right now is an unprecedented volume of challenge reports that seem to be connected to a loosely organized campaign to remove certain books," Caldwell-Stone said. "Before, you might get one or two challenge reports a week and now we're getting multiple reports per day."

Though the reports for 2021 are still coming in, 273 books were targeted in 2020 -- and Caldwell-Stone says the number is expected to be higher this year. Reports of challenges are based on media stories and voluntary reports sent to the organization. But the vast majority of book challenges remain unreported.