Free Speech Canto XVII

Michael Ceraolo's most recent poem to appear here was One Boy's (and Man's) Finery, published as part of Contributor Series 10: Silken Rags.
Free Speech Canto XVII
By Michael Ceraolo

Librarians had long been inveterate censors,
                                                                 and
had only come out fully against censorship
in 1948,
             and it wouldn't take too long
for someone to become a victim in the fight
In 1950
             in Bartlesville, Oklahoma,
the home of the Phillips Petroleum Company,
would come the case of Miss Ruth Brown,
the town's librarian for more than thirty years,
who was fired,
                      ostensibly,
                                       because
she would not perform the part of censor and remove
The Nation, The New Republic, and other periodicals
from the library's shelves,
                                      though
only two weeks after attempting to integrate
the eating area at one of the town' drugstores
(unsuccessfully)
did the charges of circulating 'subversive' material first appear
(no one ever said censors acted from only a single motive!)
 
From February,
when the integration attempt occurred,
to June,
when local law was changed to allow
library board members to be fired without any cause
and giving the City Commission the authority
to approve or disapprove library purchases,
to July,
when the whole library board was fired without cause
and a new censorship-prone board appointed,
a climate of fear prevailed,
possibly prodded along by Phillips,
                                                   though
Miss Brown herself wasn't afraid:
"if you know what you did was right
I cannot see why you should worry"
 
On July 25th she was fired from her job,
a victim of Legionnaire's Disease
as personified by E.R. Christopher,
the head of the newly-appointed board,
who remarked soon after taking the job
"my duty appears to be to clean out the Library"
He and the board would follow the town fathers'
wishes to make the library
"a place where our youth will be thoroughly indoctrinated
with the principles of Americanism"
                                                    (at least,
of a certain kind of Americanism)
 
Miss Brown's dismissal was upheld by the courts,
                                                                         and
so she set no groundbreaking precedent,
                                                            except
a a constant reminder that
"the denial of Constitutional rights to our citizens
has significance beyond the boundaries of our town"

Posted by Annmarie at 2/19/2012 11:48 PM
Categories: words to linger on
Tags: Michael Ceraolo free speech librarian censorship Ruth Brown
 

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