Grace Linn - Tumblr Posts

sweetgladiatorfesival
2 years ago
The 100 year old woman fighting book bans. Article written by Michael Daly, special correspondent for Daily Beast; published on March 23rd, 2023 and updated on March 24th. Grace Linn says she is only doing what her first husband, who was killed fighting in World War II, was doing: fighting for freedom. Grace is pictured holding the quilt of banned books she created.
The most compelling voice against book banning in Florida was perched on her walker as she addressed the 500 people at this week’s meeting of the Martin County School Board. “I am Grace Linn,” she said. “I am a hundred years young. I’m here to protest our school’s district book-banning policy. My husband, Robert Nicoll, was killed in action in World War II at a very young age. He was only 26, defending our democracy, Constitution, and freedoms.”
"One of the freedoms that the Nazis crushed was the freedom to read the books they banned," she told the school board gathering. "They stopped the free press and banned and burned books. The freedom to read, which is protected by the First Amendment, is our essential right and duty of our democracy. Even so, it is continually under attack by both the public and private groups who think they hold the truth."
“Banning books and burning books are the same. Both are done for the same reason. Fear of knowledge. Fear is not freedom. Fear is not liberty. Fear is control. My husband died as a father of freedom. I am a mother of liberty. Banned books need to be proudly displayed and protected from school boards like this. Thank you very much.”
Grace is pictured speaking into a microphone as a man standing beside her holds up the banned books quilt she created.
Her speech done, she descended from the dais with her walker. A man approached her with tears in his eyes and held her hand. “He said, ‘I have to thank you… My grandmother was 11 years old when she ran away, got out of Auschwitz. And all my other relatives did die, but without her getting out, I wouldn’t be here,” Linn recalled. “So I said, ‘I am so happy you are here.’”

read the full article here

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