counting. powered by cable. libertarn presidential nominee 13 days until election day march live at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-sp2. or online at c-span.org. newly opened historical association visitor center will join c-span as they travel to the three-story center located one block from the president's residence 1600 pencil avenue fencing avenue highlights a one fifth scale replica of the white house south façade of full scale replica of the oval office. digital recreations of white house rooms where visitors can sit in unk b-uppercase-letter

suite tour of the people's house a white house experience. on c-span. i'm happy to welcome amanda jones to the pratt library to discuss her book that lebron part led manifesto the inspiring story advocating stacy's maryland association of the same's school she attended as a child. louisiana association of school librarians and won numerous awards for work and school libraries including school journal librarian of the year.

sought after keynote speaker is a frequent volunteer for state and national library associations as well as a cofounder of the livingston parish library alliance she lives at livingston parish, louisiana third career educator 14 years off experience. currently stacy serves as a library media specialist for baltimore county. she is an active member of the american library association and counselor at large for the 2024, 2027 term. traditionally she served on the scholastic publishing journey she isnd a 2024 president of the maryland association of schoolss librarians, and it's on the advocacy conference. the washington post cult that "d that library and important engrossing story while the book makes clear the importance of

libraries, when it makes even more clear is the importance of conscientious citizens like a jones willing to stand up for their libraries. and in a starred review they wrote jones is a frank, open, emotionally raw and unwavering. but she endured his every librarians worst light mayor. yes she persevered so they can defend it by accident lgbtq are a+ topics of interest. sexual health and more in their public libraries. it must read in order to understand the deep and lasting impact of online smear campaigns and enduring needs to stand up for books. jones is ann inspiration to everyone combating book bands in her memoir/guidebook should be is available to all to help us discuss our right to read. it is my great pleasure to welcome amanda jones and stacey

nunn. [applause] [applause] thank you. good evening everyone. thank you for coming out this evening. we are going get started right away with amanda. i hope you all the opportunity to read the book. if not, please do so. just in a few words, amanda, tell me who is amanda jones? how/what inspired you to become a librarian? and how has that moved you forward in termste of your goalsetting? >> okay so who is amanda jones? stacy knows because her friends. i was a small town school

vibrated educator for 23 years with very small town louisiana as you can probably tell from a accent. i just caught up my mom and dad raised me too be a reader. my mom is a former she is a retired kindergarten teacher. my dad loved to read and they took us to the library every week. we also would pile our friends in the station wagon and my mom would take all of us, i became an educator i just love my community i think it's a call and would you say it's a call cg you're an educator to. it's a calling being an educator. i always kind of knew that is what i wanted to do. so that is what i do. i've been fortunate with the same school, this is my 24th year. coming with the second part of the question? ask how has it moved you forward in the profession?

>> i have not just an educator, teacher, librarian. but i also really believe in volunteering in your professional organizations. and so i think that when you want to do something, bring it back to the quote say the quote because i'm going to mess it up it's by doctor martin luther king jr. when you know what your life's a blueprint is you have a solid blueprint and foundation it and you know what you going to do in life you should do it as in god almighty himself has sent you down to do this job enters the best of your ability. that is what i tried to do. i am very blessed with so many school library and her friends friends andfriends and help me e way to try to be the very best i cant be. i have the best job in the world i don't think i'm biased but i don't think there's a better job than to be a school librarian or an educator.

>> thank you but what was your inspiration to write the librarian? you speak a lot about censorship and even now just talked about community activism. what was your inspiration? >> are writing the book? >> yes. cover and to tell the story about how it came to be. contrary to popular hate in my community i'm not seeking out fame and fortune. you know, i've been harassed for the past years it still happening among a small town i have been harassed. in the way this all came about is because i gave his s speech s a resident of my community at the public library. not at my schoolot board, went o the public library boardab and

gave a speech about censorship about library policy in my community turned on me because i was targeted by two extremists. and who created these awful memes and lies about me and circulated within the community. which kind of spiraled me into have to go seek therapy for the first time in my life. when you wake up one morning when there is a targeted campaign to ruin your reputation and they basically right they put that ward and buffet cortex 20 years to build your reputation in five minutes to ruin it. they wrote that. they said what they were trying to do for going to see. i was in therapy. she said he should write in your feelings. i haven't writing down different things a friend of mine said you're writing all these things down, maybe you should write a book.

i am not a writer, i guess i'm a writer now. but i am a reader. i met reader.to i'm right well i don't like to write, it's a task for me. i had not taken it seriously but on the notes app is like wi-fi has a chapter about nanaimo? what i call it? and it just so happens, i don't hear her to the organization we need diverse books? they do an auction every year. you can bid on these action items for signed copies of books or author visits. they had a 30 minute zoom to a literary agent. i know how we buy the books and how we determine what's in the collection but the house to become a book? so i bid on this auction just to learn and raise money. i won the auction that's about $75 i ever spent. [laughter]

i ended up talking to an agent named sarah fisk we talk associates 30 minute zoom but it went for an hour and there was like a wait a minute, are you are the library and i've been reading about the newspaper as a guess, that is me. sara set up your thought about writing a book question become like no. that very evening the tobias literary agency that she works for offered to sign me. i was thinking in my head i'm not really going to write a book. didn't cost anything so okay. [laughter] read over the contract, send it to my attorney this it looks good to me and i was like i don't know. [laughter] i signed it. the very next day a senior editor from bloomsbury publishing e-mailed me and said i heard you on the "new york times" first-person podcast premier thought about writing a

book? i said actually just got an agent. i let them talk. they presented an offer i could not pass up to tell my story and get paid for it. and i realize that's not how that happens for the people that write their whole lives waiting for an agent. i'm very privileged and i'm very thankful. it kind of think, i don't to tk about religion a lot because i don'tn like to push my religion on other people. i believe god has a plan for me and this must be my plan. this was handed to me. the book was hard to write. there is a lot of work. but that is how the book came to be. he started mapping out the chapters and they pulled up this funny chapter name one of the titles early on when i was being targeted and harassed i tweeted out into the universe are you there, michelle it's me amanda? i was to michelle obama now that she would ever see it.

but are you there michelle? she always says that we should take the high road when they go low, you go high. my whole tweet was about how hard it is when you're being smeared to go hi, it is very high. it was also my ode to judy blume.th it's i thought of are you there god, it's me margaret. judy needs her own separate chapter. i had debby debby jd what would judy do. [laughter] and then it just kind of come then i started getting a kick coming out titles i thought were funny. and sont it went from there. my agent help me shift it around and we had a book proposal and it just became a thing i signed her that i had to write it. [laughter] >> i can honestly say when you shared the information you are very humble about it. like hey t guys and got a deal o it was just and that. a we weren't surprised at all.

how did the way others portray you contribute to the desire for this tell-all book? to tell you kind of how my life was at the time, and 2021 is named national library of the year for school journal library. they paraded me in front of the school board. my community was all excited because look at what our library librarian did in our community. in my school board representative read a letter she was crying it was like you're one of the best things it's ever happened to our community. and i was on this hi like this is great. and then you fast-forward one year and they all turn their back on me. including my school board representative who was a friend of mine who said i was one of her child's favorite teachers, would not answer my calls.

i asked her for help comment radio silence. not only did she not help, she's file the bills and art legislature against now. all i did was go to a public library and give a speech about censorship. i talked about how books that are censored, banned, relocated, whatever you want to call it the target marginalize historically marginalized communities. that's just the fact that a court of the trevor project talked about how libraries are safe space for kids with ltb community. it was just a speech every single braid i know to get the speech. these minutes i don't know these men i've never interacted with them i was not the only one who

spoke that night's 20 something, 30 people spoke and said the same thing i did. they started was advocating for certain acts of children. i was giving pornography and erotica to six -year-olds. when you see her kindergarten teacher the lady who taught you that which her kindergarten teacher say you are a groomer on light it takes a hit. kids watch us as educators. kids watch us. and we have to set a good example. i could not have responded on social media it would have done no good. i was not about to get into an argument on social media if any of these people. the only thing i knew to do to clear my name was to speak to journalists and to write this book. >> to let my community know when i wrote this book i spilled the

tea on the community. i did not name people. i tried to shield their identity. but to showcase the hypocrisy because i don't want to knowve m totarget them like they target . ith did not shield the identityf the two men who have been the cause of this. i wanted people to know the truth. the book's been out for two or three weeks the community is all abuzz abou' it. that's all they talked about for a solid week. a restart up they didn't say it firing expulsion i wanted my story out there on public record on my terms. thank you. [applause] >> at what point were you able to self reflect and move forward in a healthy way to get the information down on paper?

quite a bit being upset. sometimes it would be and how it really took you for return emotionally. at what point were you able to self reflect and think about who you really are? what are you really trying to do? and to move forward and healthy way to get this information down on paper and share your story with the world. stacy and i have are in group chat.fo there five or six of us five of us we are from all different states -- five different states. schooling brings we are friends

casie back in 2020 write about this in the book when this hit i was devastated but my friends really came through for me. i spent a week -- would make up i had a death threat. it's very explicit were going to come get you and all of this business. my first targeted i spent several days in bed. i cried so much my eyes swelled shut and i could not see. my sinuses swelled shut i cannot breathe to the top of my nose. i spent about a week maybe in a

pity party what are we going to do? how were going to fight back? i g thought yes i'm got to i cannot just wallow. the help of other librarians from inside my state and outside my state threw up my family i decided to fight back. i have since learned of this quote there's a quote we should use our power and privilege for purpose of a very privilege the only person with more power you know historically people say there's no privilege yes, there is a privilege and being white. there's a privilege and being middle-class. i am married there's privilege int that.

i thought if i did not use, have a platform afforded to me for being a state national a brain of thehe year. that's a waste of a platform if i don't speak out. i'm well connected to people. book ceos and editors of school libraries and people who are connected. if i do not use that to get the word out about what's happening. this is not just happening to me that's happening in lab result across united states i am not unique. i just happened to be one of the loudest. this is happening to a lot of people. i can give you a name in every state. i thought it had to speak out. otherwise what a waste. what a waste. i don't if i answered your question. >> you are doing great super that kind of betrayal motivated you, mom you felt like oh yes.,u

felt like oh yes. [laughter] all thehe time. but we can't i can't. i will give you a few examples. i do not mind sharing. they call me at bananas they say i am bananas, i am crazy and said they use the banana on moji and all of their posts about me. they have the intellect of like a 4-year-old child i have funnier nicknames for them that i'm not going to say they are so much more intelligent than their nickname they were shirts with bananas on them sometimes, sometimes i'll tell you about a week moments, and the legislature last year they weree nine anti- library bills and note the louisiana legislature.

it's a dark many nonprofit extremist group that pushes all of this. with the help we have in extremist super majority in the house and senate and dictator governor and louisiana. my lawyer did say i could still refer to him as kim jon landry. his name is jeff lander had a different name and she said tha because too far close to defamation. [laughter] we had antilabor bills every to their g posting were going to gt amanda, like it was against me personally. so i took it personal. i have found an organization called louisiana citizens incident some sort censorship. we sent 44000 e-mails to the legislature quotient from all

walks of life are the first amendment freedom of speech. so one of my vindictive moments is i you know i told you about my school board member who said how wonderful and great i wasn't. well, right about her in the book talk about her name was katie her real name is kelly. [laughter] representative now, representative kelly dickerson. she filed a bill hb 777 the american library conference. two years hard labor. see that's how i reacted. they were nickname and get the amanda jones built. this is my former friends. she is might representative in my district. the other two are worse than her. that tells you.

i took it personally. i would go to school and teach and work all day and after school i would spend hours and hours calling lobbyist legislators, building coalitions and so when i showed up to speak at the legislative hearing, we defeated the bill. and it was fabulous. i say we because it was a coalition of all of us. they even said the legislators, republican and democrats alike said we got 400 e-mails each against this bill and it too for that is the power ofop the peop. if you've ever felt vindictive. three rows of the people who hate me that it started this mess against me were sitting behind me in the legislature calling meg names during the legislative sessionon because i have to endure that.