By Mike McCombs
The Island News
LADY’S ISLAND – More than 200 people gathered Sunday afternoon, Sept. 22, at St. John’s Lutheran Church for a private screening of the documentary “Banned Together: The Fight Against Censorship.”
The documentary, directed by Kate Way and Tom Wiggin and produced by Way, Tom Wiggin, Jennifer Wiggin and Allyson Rice, follows three local young women – Beaufort High’s Millie Bennett, Battery Creek’s Isabella Troy Brazoban and Beaufort Academy’s Lizzie Foster — during their senior year of high school as they played a prominent role in “fighting for the books to return to the shelves” during Beaufort County School District’s review of a list of 97 books that were challenged for appropriateness of content after a complaint was filed by two Beaufort County residents in October 2022.
The documentary ties the efforts of the three young women into the larger national picture of the rise of Moms For Liberty and book challenges across the country.
The film crew followed the students throughout their journey as they worked to reinstate the 97 books to local school libraries, advocated at school board meetings, met with national politicians and spoke at the Right To Read Rally during the American Library Association’s annual conference in Chicago.
“Kudos to the local community for teaching [these girls] how to speak up for themselves,” said co-producer Allyson Rice. “That’s going to serve them well for the rest of their lives. And this is why a local story isn’t just a local story.
The screening was held, appropriately, on the first day of Banned Books Week. Afterward, there was a brief question-and-answer session with the principle figures in the film, as well as the filmmakers, before people migrated to GG’s in Port Royal for an afterparty.
“This film was really about an intersection of a lot of issues – I was really stunned at the racism that lies underneath all of [the book bans],” said Tom Wiggin, co-producer and co-director of the project. “I’m also stunned at the willingness and admire the guts of people to speak out and put themselves out there, especially on camera … it makes me feel hopeful.”
“I will never not vote in a school board election again,” said co-producer Jennifer Wiggin.
The filmmakers are working now to sell the film for distribution, which would eventually result in the documentary being available on one or more streaming platforms and available to the general public.
For now, they have launched an impact campaign and hope to hold more than 100 screenings all over the country between now and the Nov. 5 general election. Two screenings of note are at Washington D.C.’s Martin Luther King Jr. Library in October and New York City’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, where, after the film, a panel will discuss censorship in Nazi Germany.
The documentary is entered in six film festivals so far, with the filmmakers hopeful for more, including the Beaufort International Film Festival.
Melinda Henrickson is the founder of FAAB – Families Against Book Bans – the local organization that hosted the screening and afterparty. She is also the Democratic candidate for S.C. House District 124, a seat held by Shannon Erickson.
Henrickson said the group would celebrate the small wins when it could.
“We’re expecting a really hard year ahead with legislation coming out and regulations from the Statehouse,” she said. “We’ll probably lose some books and we’ll be up in Columbia a lot. I suspect we’ll lose a lot of books the community doesn’t want to lose.”
Henrickson said this particular fight is why she’s running for office.
“You can only advocate so much when your own legislator isn’t listening to what the community wants, which is simply not to censor curriculum and our libraries,” Henrickson said. “Unfortunately, this is not about the books, it’s about silencing marginalized voices. Once we started going to the Statehouse, we realized it’s not about the books.”
Isabella Troy Brazoban, one of the three featured students in the film, ironically, had no intention of becoming part of a movement. She attended a Beaufort County Board of Education meeting simply to hear her cousin sing, not even knowing about the removal of books from schools.
But her experiences since that night in December 2022 have impacted her greatly. When asked after the screening what her big takeaway from the experience, she didn’t hesitate.
“Don’t settle,” she said. “Whenever the world makes you uncomfortable, don’t just stand there. Say something.”
Mike McCombs is the Editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
