- Welcome back y'all to my salute to reading hour.
I am hanging out with Brad Meltzer,
author of the popular I Am series for kids.
Last year, his books I Am Rosa Parks,
and I am Martin Luther King Jr.
were banned by a school district in Pennsylvania.
The decision was widely condemned.
Fortunately, students in that community stepped up
and fought back
and they are what we proudly call rad humans.
(upbeat music)
All right, so we have Ida, Renee, Christina
and Olivia dialed in and you all know Brad, right ladies?
- [Students] Yeah. Hi!
- Oh my God, and you are like the cutest bunch
of individuals as well, my goodness.
Well, to Ida and Renee, I'll start with you.
This isn't something that you even expected
to see in your town, right?
- No, it came as a shock to all of us.
I know when we found out we were just, all of us,
our initial reaction was like, how can this happen?
You know, York is a severely suburban town
with a lot of influences by cities.
And, you know, even
with the discrimination I faced being here
and living here for 17 years,
never have I encountered this blatant discrimination
against all people of different orientation,
races, and sexuality.
So it was absolutely preposterous for us to see.
- Absolutely. What about you Renee?
- Just like you just said,
this was something that we did not expect to happen.
You know, especially with the division that was happening
in this country with the past election stuff in 2020
and the murder of George Floyd, that was a time
when we were supposed to come together as a country.
That was a time when we were supposed to push
for diversity and inclusion.
But instead the board decided to push this ban
and it denied all of that.
It denied our diversity. It denied our voices.
And denied the people who needed to be heard.
There were over 250 resources in those banned books
and resources lists that were for African Americans
and for minorities that they completely denied.
- Wow. So, Christina, how did you respond?
- Well, I responded with these girls alongside of me.
We created a group chat and we are the officers of PARA,
which is the Panther Anti-Racist Union at our high school.
And we got together and we created a protest
and we protested every single day
outside of our schoolhouse, the high school
and 70 plus kids joined us every single day.
And the parents would drive by.
They would honk their horns in support.
And even kids who took the bus, they would come
off the bus and join us as soon as they can.
And that touched me because I was hurt
when this ban came out because these books should not belong
in a locked away closet.
These books belong on the shelves
of schools for kids who look like me.
Little boys and girls who are black minorities
need representation in their schools.
And that's the place that they learn,
it's the place that they grow.
So they need that representation and that support.
- And not only is it important for you to see yourself
but it's important for all different cultures
to see different cultures.
It's all, you know, all different cultures of skin
to see different, even for my kids to be able to see,
it's a disservice to all kids when this happens, you know?
So that's the bigger issue for me as well.
So Brad, you also spoke at the meeting, right?
The school board meeting?
- Yeah, they basically said, would you come?
I was like, I'll be there.
Oh, I'm not missing this, right?
And so I went there--
- They banned your books!
- They banned my book,
I'm like, I'll be there with the book.
And so I read, I was like, I wanna read to you.
I said, you know, I'm gonna read to you
from I Am Rosa Parks. And I'm gonna read to you right now.
This is exactly what I read to them.
It says, I am Rosa Parks.
I'm not a politician or a president or an actor
or a famous business owner.
I'm just an ordinary person.
But I'm also proof that there's no such thing
as an ordinary person.
I hope you'll always stand up for yourself
and I hope you'll remember that we're all in this together.
And I thought, okay, I've done my job.
I've saved the day.
And then I heard these students read.
I heard these students speak.
I heard them speak out about their community.
The mothers in that community.
There was a member of the military who said,
"I'm embarrassed that what my school has done
"and what my district has done."
And I read this to shame them into it.
I wanna shame you as to what you're banning
and keeping from amazing kids
and what you're stopping them from seeing.
- I'm not above shaming either.
Thanks. Sometimes it's a must.
Especially when you're a parent.
Thanks to these efforts especially by these young students.
The Central York school district reversed the ban.
What? I thought it was amazing.
So Olivia, we haven't gotten to speak to you.
So what did you, what did you learn from this experience?
What did it teach you?
- Yeah, I mean, growing up like kids are constantly told
that their voices are irrelevant and it doesn't matter.
Like we're 17, 16 years old.
We were, no one thought
that we would have any impact on the world.
But this experience showed us that our voice does matter.
Like we were the change. We, our voices were heard.
Our message was broadcasted internationally.
So it shows us that it doesn't matter if you're young,
your voice has impact.
Your voice has that importance.
- Absolutely.
(audience cheering)
Man, you four young women.
I'm excited to see where the hell y'all are headed.
Y'all are powerful. I love it.