Who We Are

Pendleton Area Advocates for Intellectual Freedom began in 2023 as a grassroots effort to promote reading and free access to reading materials and to counter censorship, book banning, and restriction of books and materials in both public schools and public libraries.

What We Do

We regularly attend local school board meetings, county library board meetings, county council meetings, and state board of education meetings to express our views on intellectual freedom as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States. We sponsor events such as Read and Rise during Banned Books Week, booths at community events, including book give-aways to all ages.

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

— James Baldwin