Partway through an intense Flathead County Library Board meeting, board member Doug Adams suggested the local library sever ties with the American Library Association because of the nonprofit organization’s “radical leftist agenda.” To which interim ImagineIF Library Director Martha Furman, who earlier in the meeting announced she is resigning, said the association simply follows the First Amendment, which must be upheld.
The true intent of some local Library Board members began to come into focus last week when it discussed “challenges” to two adult queer-themed books. “Challenge” is a slightly nicer way of saying ban them from the collection. To be clear, that’s what is under consideration. Censoring books at a public library. Not a public school library. A public library.
At one point over the course of the meeting, a board member actually suggested that the library stop acquiring new materials altogether until a new library director and new policy is in place, although that motion was later rescinded. Who would want the director job anyway after the county commission slashed its pay? The remaining library staffers have low morale and a few of the board members tasked with supporting this essential service instead might decide what speech is appropriate for you and me.
Anyone who has lived in this valley for more than a decade knows how puzzling these board members’ intentions really are. Remember 2010? Anyone? That’s when a series of Holocaust skeptics began showing a series of films in the basement of the same building where censoring books is now under consideration.
The first film was titled “The Holocaust Debate” and aired to a small group of white nationalists. Afterwards the organizer praised the Ku Klux Klan and characterized World War II as an act of aggression against Germany.
Prior to the movie, local residents gathered on the sidewalk outside the building to protest, holding signs that read “God is Love” and “We Honor WWII Vets.”
To be sure, then Director Kim Crowley and her staff would have preferred the library not be the venue for white nationalists to air their films. But she also explained at the time that the library protects everyone’s First Amendment rights, whether you agree with them or not. She was largely supported.
Over the next few months a handful of other highly controversial films screened in the basement. They drew more white supremacists and more protests. Scuffles broke out. People were arrested. A skinhead screamed at me in the lobby of my office. The local Jewish community was understandably on edge. But the library continued to allow the organizers to use the room.
It was a tense year in Kalispell. Yet the community’s resiliency was on full display and we’re perhaps better for it today.
So, board members, please don’t tell this community how radical the library is because it houses a few books someone may find offensive. Because this is the same library that, in the name of free speech, allowed white nationalists to gather in its building.
In other words, board members, those of us who were around at the time will have a hard time believing you.