Book banning is as old as public libraries, but the battlegrounds are freshly polarized and the stakes as high as ever, as witnessed by Oscar-nominated Kim A. Snyder in her paean to librarians, and the parents and students who flank them, on the frontlines. In Louisiana, an award-winning librarian, heartbroken by the loss of alienated teens in her midst to suicide, defends books featuring queer lives and accurate historical accounts of slavery, while withstanding death threats from her own parish community. In Texas, a zealous parent seeks to criminalize librarians for keeping LGBTQ material on shelves, while her estranged son testifies against her at a school board meeting. In New Jersey, a librarian exposes the dark-money-connected Moms for Liberty as a major book-banning engine; while in Florida, an African American pastor and a public school librarian join forces to defend libraries as places of historical truth and intellectual freedom.
Librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment Rights. As they well know, controlling the flow of ideas means control over communities. As tensions escalate, librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to lay bare the underpinnings of extremism fueling the censorship efforts. Despite facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work—the librarians’ rallying cry for freedom to read is a chilling cautionary tale.
The film will be introduced by Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms Managing Director, U.S. Free Expression Programs, PEN America. The Q&A, featuring director and producer Kim A. Snyder, as well as librarians Audrey Wilson-Youngblood and Martha Hickson, will be moderated by Juju Chang, Co-Anchor ABC News, Nightline.
Speakers
Kim A. Snyder is an Academy Award nominee and Peabody Award-winning Director / Producer whose latest feature, The Librarians, premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and will release globally in late 2025. Her Oscar-nominated short Death By Numbers, co-created with gun-violence survivor Sam Fuentes, has won multiple awards. Snyder’s acclaimed films include Us Kids (Sundance 2020), Lessons from a School Shooting (Netflix Original), and Newtown (Sundance 2016, Peabody Award, PBS). Her earlier work includes Welcome to Shelbyville (PBS) and I Remember Me (Zeitgeist Films). She also associate produced the Oscar-winning short Trevor, which spawned The Trevor Project. Snyder holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins SAIS and lives in New York City.
Audrey Wilson-Youngblood is an educator with over two decades of experience in K-12 and higher education. Throughout her career as a teacher, librarian, and leader, she’s been an advocate for student writers and readers, promoting literacy and the free and open exchange of ideas in library spaces. With experience in both school and academic libraries, Audrey is pursuing her PhD in Information Science with the goal of becoming a library educator to prepare and mentor the next generation of librarians.
Martha Hickson recently retired after 20 years as a high school librarian. Her work has been featured in School Library Journal, Booklist, and CNN Online. Her defense of intellectual freedom has been recognized with awards from the New Jersey Association of School Librarians, the New Jersey Library Association, the American Association of School Librarians, and the National Council of Teachers of English. In 2022, the National Coalition Against Censorship presented Martha with the Judith Krug Outstanding Librarian Award, and the American Library Association awarded Martha with the Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity in recognition of her “energy and bravery in the face of … persistent and ongoing hostility,” while advocating for students’ First Amendment right to read.
Juju Chang is a multiple Emmy Award-winning co-anchor of ABC News’ Nightline. She also reports regularly for Good Morning America and 20/20.
Jonathan Friedman, Ph.D., is the Sy Syms managing director of U.S. free expression programs at PEN America. He oversees research, advocacy, and education related to academic freedom, educational gag orders, book bans, and general free expression in schools, colleges, and universities. Friedman has published sociological research on universities, nationalism, and globalization, and taught courses at New York University (NYU), Columbia University, and Bard College’s Open Society University Network. Formerly, he was part of a research team examining the production of knowledge on world regions at the Social Science Research Council, and served as administrative director of the Multinational Institute of American Studies, an exchange program for international scholars based at NYU. Friedman holds an MA and Ph.D. in international education from NYU, and has received awards for his teaching, research, and leadership. He was a 2019-2020 fellow of the University of California’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.