Episode 7: Libraries Off-limits

Andrea Phillips loves her job. She works at an elementary school as a reading interventionist, teaching struggling readers to love books. When she was told by her district to pack up her classroom library earlier this year, she was devastated.

In 2022, Florida lawmakers passed HB 1467. This new law mandated that every book in Florida public schools be cataloged and reviewed for “harmful content”, and that schools create a system for parents to petition the removal of books they found inappropriate. Out of an abundance of caution, two county school districts – including Andrea’s – decided to block or remove all unreviewed books from schools while they adopted this new system. Otherwise, administrators worried they could be liable for violating another Florida law that prohibits educators from distributing pornography to minors. In effect, more than 175,000 Florida students went to schools where library books were off-limits for part of the school year. Across the state hundreds of books containing themes of race, sexuality, and LGBTQ identities have been pulled from school libaries, even classics that are required reading in other states. Critics say this is just another example of Governor Ron DeSatnis’ attempts to silence marginalized voices in Florida classrooms.

Book bans have happened throughout our country’s history, usually in response to changing social norms. But when public education is unequal and struggling schools can’t afford to lose any resources, what do laws like this do to our most vulnerable students? Host Ashley C. Ford explores Florida’s book bans, their effects on students and educators, and the evolving history of American public education.

For more information on how to support teachers and get banned books to kids, visit ALA’s Unite Against Book Bans campaign, and support Foundation 451.

Read Episode 7 Full Transcript Below

[Open with sounds of a library: a quiet room with soft talking in the background, the sounds of pages flipping.]

ASHLEY [VO]: [in a loud whisper] I’m Ashley C Ford and this is Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry’s Podcast about Joy and Justice, produced with Vox Creative.

[Ashley gets shushed]

ASHLEY [VO]: [in a quieter whisper] And welcome to the library.

[Music fades in, something simple and joyful]

ASHLEY [VO]: Or should I say, welcome to my favorite place on earth. My grandmother taught me to cherish a good story, and she’d take me and my siblings to the library as a frequent treat. My home wasn’t always peaceful growing up, but the library was calm, reliable, and filled with possibility. Literature was my entry point into the world; a beacon of life outside of the one I was born into.

I was galvanized reading books about girls like me, who were brave and cunning, and who knew their worth even when the world told them they didn’t matter.

When I ventured beyond the children’s section, I found books for grown ups that put into words the feelings that were just beginning to cast shadows in my young heart.

Eventually I wrote my own book, a memoir called Somebody’s Daughter. It’s about love and family and forgiveness, and also about the powerlessness I used to feel as a kid and the ways I grew past it. You hear writers say this a lot, but I wrote the kind of book that would have meant everything to me if I’d found it in my hometown library.

So it’s not hyperbolic to say that books and libraries save lives. They saved mine. And I’m not alone.

[Fade in sounds of Andrea teaching: “Alright friends, today we are going to be reading a fairy tale today [...] so there are a couple things that we’re gonna focus on today...”]

[Music swells and concludes]

ANDREA: Once you can read, no one can take that from you. That is something that you will have forever, and that is something that can take you further in life.

ASHLEY [VO]: This is Andrea Phillips, a reading interventionist at a public elementary school in Jacksonville, Florida. With silver hair and a warm, youthful smile, she’s the kind of teacher who radiates love for her students. She absolutely glows when she talks about teaching.

ANDREA: So as an interventionist, I see between 60 and 70 students a day. Working with students who are reading below grade level and seeing them grow. You know, every teacher will tell you, “oh, it’s when you see that ‘aha moment’.” And that’s kind of a canned answer that teachers have. But it’s true! Because when you see that click happen with a kid and they get it, Something in your heart just goes, “They did it! They did it!”

[Joyful music gently fades back in.]

You have this pride, and you’re just, you, you’re so happy for them. And so I get just as much from the kids as they do from me.

ASHLEY [VO]: Andrea has spent the better part of a decade carefully curating her classroom library, stocking it with all kinds of books – from detailed picture books about science, to historical fiction chapter books, to books with fart jokes – whatever gets kids excited about reading.

ANDREA: If you ask any one of my students, you know, ‘What does Ms. Phillips say about books?’ And they’ll tell you. “She says, books are treasures.” Because every day I say, you know, “Be nice to that book. Books are treasures.” They’re worth gold in my classroom, so be good to the books.

I would go to used bookstores, friends of the library, sales, I would put calls out on social media and ask for book donations. And so it was, Such a diverse set of books not just on topic, but on level. All of my kids could find something on their level to read independently and read successfully.

ASHLEY [VO]: So it was a devastating blow when, In January 2023, she was told to pack up her classroom library and keep it away from her students.

[Music abruptly stops]

ANDREA: That was really hard. That was probably the hardest teaching day I have ever had.

ASHLEY [VO]: Last year, Florida lawmakers passed House Bill 1467, which required that every book in public school libraries and classrooms be cataloged and reviewed for “harmful” content. The bill also required that schools develop a system to remove any book once it’s challenged by a parent.

In this context, harmful can mean books that center queer characters, or historically accurate depictions of racism – even classics that are required reading elsewhere are being targeted for removal.

Books like mine, for instance, which includes my lived experiences with sexual assault and family violence could be pulled from Florida bookshelves if even one parent decides it’s quote-unquote harmful.

HB 1467 is just one component of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ Year of the Parent initiative. Governor DeSantis says his mission is to give parents more of a say in what their kids are learning, and to combat what he calls “woke indoctrination” in public schools.

In practice, HB 1467 limited student access to library books in Florida for the better part of a school year.

Andrea: [video clip] “So as you can see, I have all of my books boxed up and packed up...” Andrea’s voice fades out.

[Music in, wistful strings with a trap beat.]

ASHLEY [VO]: Moral panics about books have been happening throughout our nation’s history: today’s is in Florida, but before that it was in New York in the 1980s. Think 1950s McCarthyism, and the Comstock Act of 1873, and the Daughters of the Confederacy shaping history textbooks after the Civil War. Even book burnings in China and Nazi Germany. Every time this kind of debate comes up, it begs the question – who gets to decide what makes a book harmful?

Why should one parent’s objection make a book off-limits to an entire district?

And is this really about protecting kids from dangerous books?

[School bell rings] Class is now in session. Let’s get into it.

[THEME]

ASHLEY [VO]: For years Andrea’s  classroom has been a haven – and not just for students in her second and third grade reading groups.

ANDREA: You know, fourth and fifth graders would come to my room and say, “Hey, um, do you think it would be okay? Could I get a book too?” You know? And teachers would say, “Hey, can I send so and so down to get a book?”

“Yeah, bring ‘em down, send them down, get some books! Take one for your little brother and sister to read, take two!” So you know, “It’s gonna be a three day weekend. You better take an extra book!” That was something that I was really proud of.

ANDREA: My biggest goal is just to instill a love of reading that kids will sit down and grab a book for pleasure. So, I just, I really want books that have faces that look like my kids. Books that kids are gonna pick up. They’re gonna find ‘em funny. They’re gonna, they’re just gonna wanna read them over and over again.

I had a diverse set of books that not only help someone see themselves in a book, but they might see someone they know in that book and go, “oh, wow, this is what so-and-so is going through. Wow.” You know, I mean, it can really give empathy to students. and that’s hugely important

ASHLEY [VO]: Working with struggling readers, Andrea stresses that her job is about more than just getting kids excited about recreational reading – though that’s a big part of it. Success in her classroom can set a course for a child’s entire educational journey.

ANDREA: When kids struggle with reading, behavioral issues are quick to follow because ‘if I can, um, get myself in trouble and cause a distraction, people won’t know that I can’t read.’

And then those behavioral issues, once you move into, like, middle and high school, it’s, it’s no longer, oh, we’re gonna call mom and she’s gotta come and pick you up because you had some behavior problems today.

You know, now it’s, you are suspended from school, you’re expelled from school. You’re, you know, now your whole education is at risk. So a position like mine is really important to be able to give those students the extra support that they need.

[Music in, thoughtful and reflective horns playing over a beat.]

ASHLEY [VO]: For a lot of Andrea’s students, academic success is already an uphill battle. For one, the school where she teaches currently ranks in the bottom 50% of Florida public schools. Reading scores are at 28%, which is almost half the state average. There’s an ongoing debate about whether standardized testing can accurately reflect students’ intelligence, and some studies suggest there’s a racial bias in how tests are administered and evaluated. If anything, these scores say less about students’ abilities and more about how public education works in this country.

Andrea teaches in a low-income area, and her school qualifies for Title 1 funding, meaning that at least 40% of the student body comes from families who are hovering just above the poverty line. More than 2,000 Florida public schools qualify for Title 1. The purpose of Title 1 is to give a leg up to schools in low income areas because public schools are largely funded by local property taxes, so a low income area means a smaller education budget.

Despite the extra funding, there’s still a correlation between title 1 schools and student performance. Because small education budgets means lower teacher salaries, larger class sizes, and less access to things like bilingual education or counselors. This also puts a burden on teachers themselves to give a lot of personal time and resources to make up for smaller budgets, like Andrea curating her own classroom library. This is true for most public school teachers in the US but especially true for schools serving low-income families.

As Andrea puts it, a lot of these families are in survival mode, making her work more complicated – and more vital.

ANDREA: Public schools are... there, there’s no replacing them. But I really feel like there is an equity issue within my district.

That’s why it’s our job as educators to be there to give the kids the support that they need and to, you know, fill in the places where mom and dad can’t always be there.

Public schools are so important because everyone deserves access to the same education.

ASHLEY [VO]: “Everyone deserves access to the same education” has been a guiding principle in America’s public school system for hundreds of years. 19th century education reformer and abolitionist Horace Mann called education, “the great equalizer. The balance wheel of the social machinery.”

But education in this country is not equal. It never has been. And schools like Andrea’s can’t afford to lose any of the few resources they do have.

[Music for a beat, then out]

ASHLEY [VO]: Andrea says she’d heard a bit about HB 1467 last year, and honestly didn’t think much of it even as it passed – maybe it meant sending home more permission slips, but that was about it.

She was not prepared for the directive she and her fellow teachers were given.

ANDREA: We were all called into the media center and we were shown a video. It stated that due to HB 1467, every single book in the district had to be vetted. And, because the district was trying to get in line with that bill, they decided that they would remove all books from classroom libraries and from media centers all to be made inaccessible to students.

ASHLEY [VO]: You might be asking yourself, ‘okay, making a catalog of every book in the district sounds like an undertaking, but can’t books stay on the shelves while this review is happening?’

In Duval County, the answer is no.

[Music in, wistful keys and horn over a beat.]

ASHLEY [VO]: In 2022, the same year that House Bill 1467 passed, Florida also adopted Statute 847.012. This law made it a felony for any adult to distribute or loan any materials to minors containing “verbal descriptions”, “narrative accounts,” or “representations” of “nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, sexual battery” – anything “pornographic” which could be considered “harmful to minors”. Some school administrators read this and worried that if a teacher recommended a book that contained any sexual themes, they could be prosecuted.

Violating this law could land you five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. And in the state of Florida, a felony conviction means you’ll probably lose your teaching license, and your right to vote.

And the training video that Andrea and her colleagues were shown that day referenced this statue.

[Training video byte: 2:28-2:40 “Florida statue 847.012 further describes this in that any person violating any provision of this section commits a felony in the third degree.”]

Ashley: I’ve seen the video, and let me tell you, it is unnerving. Between effusive thanks, the district’s chief academic officer justifies the removal of books as a necessary protection. Thank you for all you do teachers, now please lock the books away before you are charged with a felony.

As a writer, this is deeply personal to me. Definitions of what counts as obscenity are so subjective, and someone with an undiscerning eye could condemn my book as inappropriate. So could my book land a Florida teacher a felony if they recommended it to a kid whose parents thought it was obscene?

As a reader… this is still deeply personal to me! I can’t help but think about my younger self. What would have happened to me if one day, the place that was my sanctuary was closed off, and my teachers were scared to give me the wrong book? Whether intentional or not, this legislation casts a shadow of fear in the classroom, which will probably stay there even after the school books are cataloged.

[Music out]

ASHLEY [VO]: Not every Florida school district took this approach, and some have criticized the Duval county school district for over-reacting. But in Andrea’s view, her district was acting out of an abundance of caution to protect their teachers from potential prosecution.

ANDREA: The way that this bill was worded was very vague, to the point that people started throwing around threats of, you know, losing your license, losing your right to vote. The fear mongering that happened with this is really terrible.

And teachers were scared too, you know, we’ve lost so many teachers and we have such a teacher shortage. I can see where maybe the line of thinking of, “look, let’s protect these teachers that we have. We don’t want them being afraid of losing their jobs or being charged with things.”

But it was… it was, it was a really hard hit.

I felt not only that my autonomy as a teacher had been taken away, but I really felt that my trust, you know, the way that families trust me, the way that my administration trusts me, the way that my district supposedly trusted me to choose books, I felt like that was gone.

And so that, um, that hurt. That hurt a lot.

[Music in with subtle urgency and momentum, uneasy synths over a trap beat.]

ANDREA: At first, I just kind of taped off all of my books and put them to the side and made it so that the kids couldn’t get to it with caution tape. And, the kids came in and they were like, is it Halloween? And, you know, they thought it was kind of funny.

Eventually, within a few days, I wound up actually boxing them all up. And they didn’t come back out this school year. And my kids were just, just, They were angry, they were sad. When they came in and actually saw all the books gone, they were just like, ‘what did you do with our books?’ And ‘where are they’ and ‘what’s happening?’

JESSE:  What is happening is that the impetus towards book burning has been channeled today into book banning.

ASHLEY [VO]: After the break, we hear from one expert about the historical context of Florida’s HB 1467 and others like it.

[Music transition to midroll.]

[MIDROLL]

[School bell rings, recess is over]

ASHLEY [VO]: “History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what to do next – which is why it’s worth trying to know where things come from.” That’s a quote from Historian Jill Lepore.

I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot. Especially as Florida lawmakers continue to pass legislation that inhibits teaching certain subjects, and as school districts in other states like Texas, Utah, and Missouri adopt similar legislation to remove controversial books.

History is hereditary, we’ve been here before.

[Music in, something energetic and a little cheeky]

ASHLEY [VO]: In 1976, a group of teenagers in New York sued their school board. This was after a parent group was successful in removing nine books that they considered anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and “just plain filthy”.

The Pico vs Island Trees School District case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the students. Chief Justice Brennan said in his decision that the right to free speech also meant the right to receive speech, especially for students.

[Music fade out]

This is playing out again in Florida today: concerned parents, and lawmakers, overextending themselves to erase ideas and curriculum that they find dangerous.

And for education activists like Seattle-based teacher Jesse Hagopian, we should all be concerned about what’s happening in Florida right now.

JESSE: I’m really interested to see what happens with HB 1467. It’s truly a dystopian law. The idea that you would threaten teachers with a felony? With a five year jail sentence and $5,000 fine? It is truly horrific.

This debate really isn’t about obscenity at all. Education is such a powerful force and it can help young people understand themselves and that can help them transform society, or it can be used to create conformity and impose authority and train young people to believe that they should accept the current inequalities.

ASHLEY [VO]: History is hereditary. So to understand how we got here, let’s talk about where we started.

JESSE:  The Founding Fathers used a lot of flowery words about education and equality. But it’s important to note that that vision didn’t include Black people. It didn’t include native people, it didn’t include women. And so there were experiments with forms of schooling not long after the Revolutionary War. But it wasn’t until the 1830s that there began to be a movement for what they called the common school.

ASHLEY [VO]: Advocates of the common school believed that offering state-funded education that was available to all* – well, “all” with an asterisk – was essential for the nation’s longevity. It was seen as a civic duty; an investment in the public good.

In a lot of ways, these same fundamental principles guide public education today. Though Jesse says, it’s important not to forget that asterisk.

JESSE:  At every step of the way, Black communities had to fight to be included as part of what was considered the public.

ASHLEY [VO]: It’s not just that Black people weren’t allowed to attend public schools. For generations, anti-literacy laws made it illegal for Black communities, freed or enslaved, to know how to read or write at all. Because when oppressed people are literate, they start mobilizing.

[Music in, abrasive drums and guitar.)

JESSE:  Black people knew there was no true emancipation without education. The Stono Rebellion happened in 1739 in South Carolina, a remarkable man named Jemmy led that uprising of enslaved people, and they wrote on a banner, the word ‘LIBERTY!’ with an exclamation point. And as they marched, they collected more enslaved people in their rebellion, but the rebellion was put down and they were surrounded and attacked. And not only were all of them executed for wanting their freedom, but the enslavers wanted to kill the idea of freedom.

And so in 1740, the first anti-literacy laws were enacted in South Carolina and they spread throughout the south that made it illegal for Black people to be literate. And it often came with severe punishment. If you were caught reading or writing, you could be maimed, you could lose a finger, you could even be killed. And yet Black people refused to give up that right.

ASHLEY [VO]: Like Andrea when she talks about her students, Jesse lights up when he talks about this history. I share the pride he feels for the brave men and women who learned in secret, and shared knowledge that could get them killed.

But that pride is bittersweet, because it comes with the understanding that often these people paid a dear price for their hard-won knowledge.

[Music out]

ASHLEY [VO]: Jesse calls anti-literacy laws a form of violence known as “epistemicide”.

JESSE:  Epistemicide is the killing or the silencing or annihilation of entire systems of knowledge. What Professor Henry Giroux calls “the violence of organized forgetting.” And there has been many violent attempts to force people to forget their culture, their history, and their past.

ASHLEY [VO]: Jesse says that epistemicide can take a lot of different forms, like when Spanish missionaries burned nearly all of the Mayans’ written texts. Or when the US government forced Native American children to attend boarding schools and become quote unquote “civilized”. Or when white supremacists burned down hundreds of Black schools during Reconstruction. The common goal was to erase and disrupt systems of education that benefitted marginalized people – anything that could threaten the status quo.

JESSE:  And I believe that Epistemicide is one of the drives of those who seek to destroy ethnic studies, Black studies, critical race theory, and other systems of knowledge that can help us challenge structural racism today.

ASHLEY [VO]: Last year, Florida reported a significant gap in reading levels between Black and white students. Across the state, Black students are reading as much as 29 percentage points lower than white students – In Duval county, where Andrea teaches, it’s even lower.

Why would lawmakers work to limit kids’ access to books?

JESSE:  They want to ban students from being able to understand their society, to understand where inequality comes from, and to understand how they could be part of collective struggles to transform society. To make it more, more equitable.

ANDREA: Where’s the lie? Because if you’re taking away any of the books in my classroom that are of high interest to these students, you’re taking away their interest in reading. You’re taking away their interest in learning something new. And so what are we gonna do? “Oh, I’ll just go back to my tablet and play this game and veg out on it.”

ASHLEY [VO]: Andrea’s school’s student body is predominantly Black, and she estimates that a majority of the students in her reading groups are English language learners from families that have either recently immigrated or been displaced from their countries of origin. It’s not lost on her that these students inherited a lineage of anti-literacy laws and epistemicide.

[Music fade in, determined and pensive synths and keys.]

ANDREA: They don’t deserve that. These kids are just brilliant. You know, this is our next generation coming up and, and we need to do everything we can to encourage them to continue on with learning.

ASHLEY [VO]: There’s already so much stacked against struggling learners, especially students of color living in poverty. American schools are still segregated, not by law like they once were but by a history of redlining and housing discrimination, built upon a history of enslavement and marginalization.

The achievement gap along racial and economic lines is well-documented, and we’ve known for decades that it’s harder for kids at under-funded schools to rise out of poverty. That’s why programs like Title 1 exist, and why schools employ literacy specialists like Andrea; because at its best, education can be a “great equalizer”.

So what are we doing when we pass legislation that takes resources away from schools where every resource counts?

Laws like this make teachers afraid to teach, and can disrupt critical education for the kids who need it most. How do we expect vulnerable students – any students – to thrive?

[Music out]

Andrea [video]: “So we made it to the end of the school year and I still didn’t get to take my books back out.”

ASHLEY [VO]: On the last day of school Andrea recorded a video.

Andrea [video]: “My estimate is there’s 200-300 books here that shouldn’t be in boxes. They should be in kids’ hands.”]

ASHLEY [VO]: The video shows a table covered with boxes and boxes of children’s books that haven’t seen the light of day since January.

She was eventually given a list of approved books that she was allowed to use in her classroom, but none of her original curated library got used for the rest of the school year.

Andrea [video]: “This makes me a little sad, that I actually have all these books to take home because it’s the last day of school and instead of packing these up and taking these home I should be putting them in the hands of students and they should be taking them home.”]

Ashley: Another unexpected result of this law is the toll it’s taken on educators. Florida is experiencing what might be the state’s worst teacher shortage in history, with thousands of vacancies across the state. Some say it’s at least in part because of the burden of highly politicized legislation dictating curriculum. Andrea feels that burden, and says it might be getting too heavy to bear.

ANDREA: When I first started teaching I had much more autonomy. Yes, I was given a curriculum that I had to use, but I was also encouraged to find outside resources to bring in so that my kids could relate to these things.

But as the years go on and the years go on, it becomes less and less that teachers in Florida are able to do that. And as an interventionist, I don’t even have the same pressures that a classroom teacher has. Things like grades and parent conferences and standardized testing and all of these things and it’s still, it’s hard on me and it’s kind of pushing me to make a decision if I wanna go back or not.

I haven’t made that decision a hundred percent yet. But it’s really, really hard to be a teacher here.

ASHLEY [VO]: In March of this year, a coalition of Florida’s largest teacher’s union, along with literacy groups, and a pro-democracy organization, challenged HB 1467 in a lawsuit. Their argument was that the text of the law was too broad so that subsequent rules put too great a burden on librarians, teachers, and media specialists. At time of recording, the lawsuit is ongoing.

In July, former president Barack Obama spoke out in support of librarians and students navigating various book bans, saying quote “[N]ot only is it important for young people from all walks of life to see themselves represented in the pages of books, but it’s also important for all of us to engage with different ideas and points of view.”

Meanwhile, across the country, hundreds of books have been removed from public schools with similar legislation – especially books with LGBTQ characters and themes, as well as discussions of race and racism.

At least two counties – Manatee and Duval – instructed teachers and librarians to remove or cover books this school year, which meant that nearly 300 public schools were told to make books temporarily off-limits to more than 175,000 students while educators worked to comply with the new law.

Let me say that again. In 2023, at least 175,000 American students went to schools where books were off limits for part of the school year. All part of a political movement that is gaining traction in other states.

ASHLEY [VO]: Towards the end of production on this episode, Andrea got in touch to let us know that she’d finally made a decision about whether she would return to school in the fall.

ANDREA:  I will try not to cry because I’m sad about it. But, um, I went to my administration last week and told them that I was gonna be resigning.

ASHLEY [VO]: Andrea’s health also plays into the decision. She’s been fighting stage 4 breast cancer for the past two years, and was starting to feel the physical toll of stress.

ANDREA: If, in a year, my health has declined and I spent that year pushing a rock uphill instead of focusing on my family and myself I, I wouldn’t forgive myself.

I didn’t leave because of the kids. Or my administration. The stress didn’t come from them. It, you know, it came from the state and it comes from all this legislation that’s being passed and it, it really was just impacting, um, my ability to teach the way that I want to teach. Um, the insults that have been thrown at teachers by saying we are trying to indoctrinate kids, that we’re groomers? [tearful] It’s disgusting. So, so um… politics in the classroom is really making a difficult job even harder.

And so, um, that’s, that’s, that’s where we are.

[Music in, a wistful flute playing over record scratching.]

ASHLEY [VO]: As a country, we love to hold children up as rhetorical representations of the best of us. And I’m sympathetic to parents who want to do everything they can to protect their kids. But I cannot accept that taking books away from schools does anything but hurt kids. Any attempt to limit literacy, as far as I’m concerned, is a delusional fight among adults where children are the casualties.

Anyone who would tell you that curiosity is dangerous benefits from a society of small minds. And in my opinion there’s nothing more cruel than denying children public access to literature, when literature might be their only portal to the larger world.

We’ll have a list of resources in our show notes if you want to know more about how to support Florida teachers and increase student access to books.

[CREDITS]

Into the Mix is a Ben & Jerry’s Podcast produced by Vox Creative.

This episode was written by Bethany Denton.

The Vox Creative team includes Lead Producers Bethany Denton and Martha D. Salley, Production Manager Taylor Henry, and Production Coordinator and Associate Producer, Jessica Bae. Annu Subramanian is our Executive Producer.

The team also includes Ariana Jiffo, senior manager of creative services. Design Director Brittany Falussy, and post-production stars Greg Russ and Andrew Hammond.

Our engineers for this episode were Kyle Neal and Veronica Simonetti, along with help from Amanda Rose Smith. Original music by Israel Tutson.

Thanks to Ekemini Ekpo, AJ Gutierrez and Laura Delaroto for their production support. Thanks also to Erin Watley.

The Ben & Jerry’s team includes Jay Tandon, Jay Curley, Sanjana Mahesh, Chris Miller, and Palika Makam.

Next month, we’re headed to northern Ontario to the front lines of Canada’s land back movement.

I’m Ashley C. Ford. Thank you for listening.