Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
Former President Obama blasts book bans, praises librarians
Former President Barack Obama, in an open letter published on his social media accounts Monday, praised the country’s librarians for standing “on the front lines” as book bans spread around the nation.
In the letter to the “hardworking librarians of America,” the former president took aim at the ongoing efforts by conservatives, especially the Florida-based ‘Moms for Liberty,’ a group recently designated as a hate and extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, to ban books covering issues regarding gender, human sexuality and race.
Writing on Twitter, Obama noted: “Today, some of the books that shaped my life—and the lives of so many others—are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives.
And librarians are on the front lines, fighting every day to make the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions, and ideas available to everyone.” The former president outlined in the letter American authors and poets would made a significant impact on his life. “Writers like Mark Twain and Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman and James Baldwin taught me something essential about our country’s character.
