Right to Read Celebration
The New Republic will bring together America’s Most Banned Authors and hand out the first Toni Morrison Awards for Courage to Americans fighting against censorship
The celebration of the national Right to Read Day will also spotlight The 10 Most Challenged Books in America in 2023
Hosted by: Katie Phang, host, MSNBC’s The Katie Phang Show
Jacqueline Woodson, author, The Day You Begin, Brown Girl Dreaming, Red at the Bone
Lauren Groff, author and owner of The Lynx bookstore
David Levithan, author and publisher
Nikole Hannah-Jones, author, The 1619 Project
Ellen Hopkins, author, Crank
George M. Johnson, author, All Boys Aren’t Blue
Ashley Hope Pérez, author, Out of Darkness
The New Republic will host a high-profile live and livestreamed event to celebrate Right to Read Day, a day of action launched by Unite Against Book Bans to encourage communities to stand up to censorship. Partnering with AFT, Alfred A. Knopf/Penguin Random House, the American Library Association, the Books & Books Literary Foundation, Macmillan Publishers, PEN America, the event, hosted by MSNBC’s Katie Phang, will continue The New Republic’s longstanding commitment to defend the First Amendment.
“The New Republic is proud to host this important event. We are honored to help in the urgent fight against the book bans that have been sweeping our country,” said Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic. “And we are thrilled to be able to hand out the first Toni Morrison Awards for Courage to librarians, teachers and authors on the frontlines, especially since The New Republic was a place that published Ms. Morrison’s words about rights and freedom when she was alive.”