Intellectual Freedom: Banned Books Event 2022

• Carole Boston Weatherford 
  New York Times best-selling author Carole Boston Weatherford recently released Beauty Mark: A Verse Novel of Marilyn Monroe and R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. Her 50-plus books include the Caldecott Honor winners Freedom in Congo Square, Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. She won a Coretta Scott King Author Honor for Becoming Billie Holiday, NAACP Image Awards for Moses and for Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America, the Arnold Adoff Poetry Award for The Legendary Miss Lena Horne, and an SCBWI Golden Kite and WNDB Walter Award for Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library. Among her most popular titles are Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins andThe Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip Hop. Baltimore-born, Weatherford teaches at Fayetteville State University In North Carolina.
   

• Jeffery Boston Weatherford
  Illustrator and poet Jeffery Weatherford founded the online hip hop collective Triiibe Worldwide. His debut release, You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen, was selected among the year’s best books by Kirkus Review, National Council of Teachers of English, National Council for the Social Studies and the New York Public Library. A teaching artist for the National Book Foundation, he has lectured, performed and conducted workshops in the U.S., Africa and the Middle East. His fine art has shown in North Carolina, Maryland, Georgia and Washington, D.C. He lives in his hometown of High Point, North Carolina.
   

• Dr. Michele Schlehofer (she/her/hers) 
  Community psychologist Michele Schlehofer (PhD, 2007) is a Professor of Psychology at Salisbury University. Trained in the Lewinian tradition of action-research, she has an extensive record of community engagement and scholar-activism. She is co-Director of both Salisbury University's REACH (Re-Envisioning Ethics Access and Community Humanities) Initiative and the Accelerated Mentoring Program, which trains undergraduate psychology majors interested in social justice and antiracism. She is the founder and past Executive Director of Salisbury's PFLAG Chapter, and currently serves on the Board of the LGBTQ+ youth advocacy organization GLSEN Maryland, as Secretary of the Society for Community Research and Action, and on the Board of Trustees for Wicomico County Public Libraries.

• Mr. Seth Hershberger 
   Seth Hershberger is the director of Wicomico Public Libraries. Previously, he worked for the U.S. State Department as a Public Diplomacy Professional Associate and Community Liaison Office Coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Guyana. Before that he worked in a variety of positions in public libraries including for 10 years as Head of Public Services at Cass County Public Library in Missouri. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer, serving for two years in Tonga. He earned his master's degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Missouri. He lives in Salisbury.  
  
   
• Ms. Jamie Watson 

Jamie Watson has been Collection Development Manager at Baltimore County Public Library since 2010, and has also worked at Harford County Public Library, Enoch Pratt free Library, and Columbus (OH) Metropolitan Library. She has served on a variety of ALA Committees, including many that focus on Children’s and Teen books, such as the Michael L. Printz award (2011), and the Newbery Medal (2017). Most recently she served on a team that was named a YALSA Volunteer of the year to name the Outstanding Books for the College bound, a list that has, for example,  both Gender Queer and All Boys aren’t Blue on it. Originally from Ohio, she now lives in Southeast Baltimore with her husband and cats.

AGENDA
 

1:45-2:00 p.m. - Gather at the S. Salisbury Blvd entrance of the Guerrieri Academic Commons (GAC) for an escorted tour. Tour starts at 2 p.m.

2:00-2:30 p.m. - Gather at the Conway Hall Tower entrance for escort to the Dr. Ernie Bond Curriculum Resource Center if you do not want the GAC tour.

2:30-3:00 p.m. - Refreshments and Conversations

3:00-4:00 p.m. - Keynote speakers - Carole Boston Weatherford and Jefferey Boston Weatherford

4:00- 5:00 p.m. - Panelists - Dr. Michele Schlehofer, Mr. Seth Hershberger, Ms. Jamie Watson

5:15-5:45 p.m. - Poster contest display and Concluding Remarks

Do you know that 1597 books were challenged just in 2021! Check out this infographic.

If you have any questions about the event please contact one of us:

• Mou Chakraborty 
  Salisbury University Libraries
  mxchakraborty@salisbury.edu
• Andrea Boothby-Rice
  Washington College Library; MLA IFP chair
  aboothbyrice2@washcoll.edu