Fall of Freedom! 

Milwaukee Public Library, Martin Luther King Branch, November 22nd

It was a powerful pop-up! Wisconsin Chapter, WDA Fall of Freedom, Milwaukee, Nov 22. Todd Gitlin (a founding member of WDA), Martin Luther King, Amanda Gorman, Marquis de Lafayette, a personal a testimony on ICE from Chicago, a personal testimony of surviving sexual assault, and the Epstein files.  David Maraniss (Steering Committee member) drove from Madison to read from his own father's HUAC testimony. His book on this episode is called "A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father."  These are just some of the  readings we heard at the beautifully renovated Martin Luther King Library for two hours on Saturday.   We were also thrilled to be able to record it all,  thanks to the filmmaker Mark Doremus. We began with a stirring statement from National Steering Committee member poet Peter Balakian, posted below. We want to thank everyone who came to listen, YOU WERE TERRIFIC! Thank you especially to Amy Waldman (Chief Adult Reference Librarian) and the library staff.  The times do not belong to those who would weaken democracy, but to those of us raising our voices defending it.  And last but not least, a huge thanks to our glorious readers! 

"I’m making a statement at my public appearances this year. As an American writer and university professor of forty-five years, I feel it is my obligation to witness what is happening to our democracy. I believe this is well beyond party identities and party politics. Donald Trump’s assaults on universities and higher education, secondary education, and civic culture including museums - through coercion and tactics that resemble extortion - and are anti-democratic and often violations of the First Amendment. They will not work. Book bans will not work. Critical thinking and knowledge production in our democratic educational structures is a sedimentary rock with layers embedded in several hundred years of culture and intellectual life. Without that culture and our open, pluralistic systems of learning, we would not have a democracy. To falsify history as this President and his followers are doing is to undermine the foundations of fact, knowledge, and moral understanding - and of our future. To purge our government of intellectual expertise needed to run a complex society is to demolish public health safety, national security, and the rule of  law. We are reminded that Nazism, although violently destructive, was not able to destroy the Enlightenment tradition in Germany."