[0:00] [Music] [0:02] books are often a place where you can [0:04] find yourself represented and you don't [0:06] feel like you are alone or you're an [0:08] outcast or there's something wrong with [0:10] you Bloomington freedom to read was a [0:11] group that we started because we were [0:13] experiencing adults in the community [0:15] wanting to ban books from our high [0:17] school middle school and Elementary [0:18] School libraries and as students we [0:21] wanted to share our voices cuz these [0:22] were our schools and let the school [0:24] board know that we wanted to keep these [0:26] books around we were a group of like six [0:29] or seven core members and 25 or so other [0:33] students from both Kennedy and Jefferson [0:36] High Schools who came together to [0:39] challenge this petition to remove books [0:43] from our school libraries and so we came [0:46] together and we wrote speeches to [0:48] present to the school board during their [0:50] monthly listening sessions to speak [0:53] towards our opposition to this petition [0:56] as soon as you have someone whose [0:58] identity is stripped from the media then [1:01] they're stripped from the community as a [1:02] whole as well so we we felt like the [1:05] efforts targeted you know queer people [1:08] trans people all all these different [1:10] groups of students who at our school are [1:12] represented by this media and by taking [1:14] that away they would be um you know not [1:16] represented and then not feel like a [1:18] part of the community which is [1:20] unacceptable so the school board decided [1:22] to make it more difficult for books to [1:25] be removed from our librar so I think [1:27] that's a huge win for us they definitely [1:29] listened we felt represented I think it [1:31] was a great effort all around and I'm [1:33] really happy with how it went not only [1:34] did we speak to you know the school [1:36] board but we spoke to the governor as [1:39] well and people who deal with like [1:41] education Statewide we saw Tim Walls [1:44] pass a policy that would make it harder [1:46] to ban books in Minnesota so that was [1:48] really nice to see that he was willing [1:50] to meet with us and hear out our voices [1:52] and hear what the students want and then [1:53] put that into action it felt really nice [1:56] when we were getting this award from the [1:57] city I felt like I felt very appreciated [2:00] it felt nice to have our efforts [2:01] affirmed it was an acknowledgement that [2:04] the city and the schools are listening [2:06] to the students it's a great thing to [2:08] have but it's also it wasn't what we [2:10] were going for the whole time it's [2:11] deeper than just getting recognition so [2:14] I'm excited and I'm honored and I [2:16] appreciate it but also like this is [2:18] something that has to continue to be [2:19] fought thank you to the school board and [2:22] thank you to all the adults that guided [2:24] us and sort of started the work that we [2:27] ended up doing and thank you to Johnny [2:30] kerwin's moms who hosted all of our [2:32] meetings outside of school and thank you [2:34] to the city at Large