Wednesday, March 3, 2021

F451

On March 3, 2014, the Baton Rouge chapter of The Oath Keepers of the Confederacy launched a campaign to ban Uncle Tom's Cabin from the public school curriculum and have all copies removed from the Louisiana Public Library System. In a manifesto mailed to every newspaper and television station in the state, they cited the overwhelmingly negative depiction of Simon LeGree and the reinforcement of widely-held stereotypes about slave-owners as their reasons for objecting so strongly to the novel. When a group of 75-100 Oath Keepers staged a book burning in front of the East Baton Rouge Public Library, librarians called the Baton Rouge Police.


Upon arriving at the site, where several dozen copies of Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel served as fuel for the bonfire set by the protestors, Officer Lafayette "Fais Do Do" Fontenot was met by the three librarians who stood several feet from the bonfire, crying and begging the protestors not to destroy any more books. Officer Fontenot calmed the hysterical women down, and told the Oath Keepers to "go on home" as he didn't want to see any of "you nice boys" end up spending the night in a jail cell.


The group dispersed, leaving the fire to burn, and all were allowed to leave without any further action taken by law enforcement. The librarians, who were confused as to why no one had been arrested, were left to put out the flames and clean up the mess of burnt paper.


The following day, a reporter from The Baton Rouge Register called Officer Fontenot and requested a response to media reports that the three librarians had filed a formal complaint against him and were demanding a full-scale investigation of his failure to make a single arrest, even though he'd witnessed a crime in progress. 


"Those little ladies need to calm the hell down," Fontenot replied, "I was there and I can tell you that what I saw was just some good ole boys having some fun. No one got hurt. It was a peaceful protest which, last I checked, was the right of every American. Matter of fact, the only ones making a fuss were those three librarians - bawling and yelling...and now they've got the papers and the news stations hassling me. My phone's been ringing all day, and there are reporters parked in front of my house. You know what that is? It's a goddamned lynch mob - that's what it is." 


After an investigation, the librarians' complaint was found to have no merit. Officer Fontenot successfully petitioned to have any mention of the incident or the investigation removed from his file. 
The Oath Keepers of the Confederacy went on to stage a dozen more book burnings throughout the state. Uncle Tom's Cabin was not officially removed from library shelves, but it was pulled from the public school curriculum. 

No comments:

Post a Comment