It’s been such a special experience to collaborate with @firestormcoop on dreaming up #BannedBooksBack and then engaging in months of work to make sure that many thousands of books removed from Florida classrooms are put directly back into many thousands of kiddos’ hands into that not-so-sunshiny state. So few antifascist actions these days feel successful, much less heartwarming, but our #TrashFascismNotBooks has been both!

Indeed, I could (and someday, maybe should) share countless stories of all the sweetness that Banned Books Back has generated, from the cutest and queerest Girl Scout troop eagerly helping to package up books, to community members drawing adorable pictures on the book bundle packages that we then shipped as #SolidarityBeyondBorders across state lines, to being reminded by so many folks in Florida that they are (and were) resisting book bans and all the ways such “book burning” ends up burning ideas, spaces, and people. (This is just a tiny sampler!)

And while it’s not a “contest” over which moment in the Banned Books Back saga has been the tenderest, I’m feeling especially proud, in a #BeGayDoCrime sort of way, of our latest creative scheme for our second-to-last volunteer book packaging party: #PledgeAgainstPrisons. In partnership with @BlueRidgeABC and @tranzmissionprisonproject, we’re connecting the dots between book bans in prisons and schools, and how fascism harms people in both, by encouraging folks—near and far—to make a pledge per book bundle packaged (up to 250 bundles) on June 11, the International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. (See @june11 and @supportmariusmason.)

Come in person to Firestorm to learn about June 11 and the anarchist freedom fighters who are incarcerated, eat some yummy free food, and package a bunch of books! And/or no matter where you live, pledge 5 cents, 25 cents, a dollar, etc. per book bundle sent, and we’ll donate all funds raised to anarchist prisoners.

See pledge form at http://bit.ly/j11-pledge

Free minds, free them all, until all are free!

#EducatingOurselvesForFreedom
#BooksNotBombs
#BooksNotBars
#AlwaysCarryABooks