The American Library Association’s (ALA) Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) has announced the five winners of the 2025 Judith F. Krug Memorial Fund Banned Books Week Programming Grants. The $1,000 grants help support public, academic, and special libraries; schools; and nonprofit organizations offering innovative and engaging programming for Banned Books Week, October 5–11.

This year’s awardees are: Tom C. Clark High School, San Antonio, TX; Indigenous Idaho Alliance, Boise, ID; George M. Jones Memorial Library, Lynchburg, VA; University of Buffalo Libraries, Buffalo, NY; and University of Delaware Libraries, Museums and Press, Newark, DE.

“We are acutely aware that what’s needed is education and information around the right to access materials, the freedom of the press, the freedom to read, the freedom to speak,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF). “And we are trying to expand our efforts to advance that kind of education in schools and in communities. The Banned Books Week grants are part of that.”

Librarian Judith Krug spent much of her career defending intellectual freedom and fighting book banning, first as director of the OIF and then, in 1969, cofounder and executive director of FTRF in 1969. In 1982, she cofounded Banned Books week.

After her death in 2009, her family established the Judith F. Krug Education Fund. Since 2010, the fund has provided grants to a range of groups and institutions to help support Banned Books Week programming, educate their constituents about the freedom to read, and amplify their voices in the fight against censorship. Grants are distributed based on a combination of innovation, need, and the desire to reach new communities. A volunteer committee of FTRF trustees, members, and others help select recipients; until last year, Judith Krug’s husband Herb Krug participated.

A HIGH SCHOOL FREEDOM WALK

The Freedom to Read celebration at Tom C. Clark High School in San Antonio, TX, has been an annual event since 2023. The week of activities is anchored by a Freedom Walk, designed to educate and engage the school community about the right to read and the historical and current issues that threaten it, as well as actions students can take to defend their First Amendment rights. The Freedom Walk occurs during lunch periods, with five interactive stations centered around various censorship issues; students engage through games and prompts, reflecting on their own experiences.

Components of the Freedom Walk have included information about how school library books are selected and weeded, and how challenges are addressed, as well as visits from authors of books on voting rights. Recently, says Clark HS Librarian (and a 2024 LJ Mover & Shaker) Lucy Podmore, the focus has shifted from banned books to students’ rights as readers. “I wanted them to know Supreme Court cases that supported their rights to read, and I wanted them to be more aware of state laws and policies that were impacting what was available in school libraries,” she told LJ.

The Krug grant will expand the program to include an essay contest, a One Book/One School program (Verify by Joelle Charbonneau), and a panel discussion, moderated by a student, with a school board member, the public library assistant director, and a local newspaper journalist talking about their roles in protecting the larger community’s access to information—plus lunch for students attending the panel. The idea, said Podmore, is that “it doesn’t just become a one-day or a one-week focus, but it’s a continual conversation that happens among our community.”

GENEALOGY AND SLAVERY

The George M. Jones Memorial Library (JML) in Lynchburg, VA, founded in 1908, is a specialized research library that sits on the second floor above the Lynchburg Public Library’s main branch. JML is an independent, privately funded library focused on genealogy and history, and in 2023 launched a multiyear project to discover, acknowledge, and share the names of enslaved persons in its manuscript collection.

Lynchburg has a complex history. A city settled by Quakers in search of religious freedom, it was the site of the largest slave trading market in Virginia west of Richmond. The materials, pamphlets, and books on enslavement and the Civil War in JML’s collections have often been the targets of censorship attempts, said Head Librarian Deborah Smith. “I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to share materials from our collections in a way that is historical and gives flavor to the city’s and the region’s past at a time when, increasingly, there are conversations about censorship and what it means to have the freedom to read.”

JML has mounted a months-long exhibition on the history of book banning in Lynchburg that examines the historical frameworks in which those efforts happened. The display and text will include original documents, postcards, newspaper stories, and ephemera that highlight issues and events related to the freedom to read, “from selection of books to suppression to censorship to banning, burning, and revising,” Smith told LJ. Examples include textbook and student workbook burnings that occurred in Appomattox in the early 1960s, a banned educational film from 1940 depicting the birth of a baby, and some removals and restrictions in JML’s collection itself, such as material about Communism sent from the Soviet Embassy to libraries across the country in the 1950s, which were restricted to adults only.

Concurrently with the physical display, JML will be mounting a digital exhibit for Banned Books Week. “We want to make sure that people have few barriers to getting this information,” said Smith. “It’s the community’s history which we are sharing.” The library is also building a manuscript collection of challenged books in Virginia.

INDIGENOUS ALLIANCE

Other grantees demonstrate the wide range of intellectual freedom work being done in libraries.

In observation of Banned Books Week and Indigenous People’s Day, the Indigenous Idaho Alliance in Boise will host Read for Your Rights: Native Stories Can’t Be Banned. The multiday event includes a read-in, storytelling, displays, and creation spaces, culminating in a full-day celebration and the launch of a Little Native Library that features works by Indigenous, Black, Latine, queer, trans, and multilingual writers.

“We’re honored to receive support from the Freedom to Read Foundation during a time when our very existence is being censored,” said organizer and founder Tai Simpson. “At the Indigenous Idaho Alliance, we don’t see books as objects, we see them as vessels of resistance, and future-building. This grant helps us launch our Little Native Library and celebrate Banned Books Week as a reclamation of story. Indigenous people are the world’s first storytellers, and it’s not a coincidence that our books are being banned. We’re not just resisting bans, we’re building spaces where our youth can see themselves, where our languages can live, and where storytelling is treated as ceremony.”

BANNED IN PRISON

In spring 2026, the University at Buffalo (UB) Prison Studies Certificate will partner with the UB College in Prison Program and UB Libraries to launch “Barred and Banned: Censorship Behind Bars,” a public education initiative exploring the banning of books in carceral settings. The project’s centerpiece is a curated exhibit in the university library featuring books banned in U.S. prisons, ranging from literary classics and political manifestos to self-help and educational texts. “Each featured book will include information on where and why it is banned, prompting viewers to consider what it means to read freely in a society where access to ideas is so uneven,” Mary Nell Trautner, director of the UB College in Prison Program, told LJ.

In tandem with the exhibit, a public panel discussion will feature formerly incarcerated students, prison education faculty, librarians, and free speech advocates; they will examine the politics of prison censorship, the role of libraries in protecting intellectual freedom, and the everyday impact of book bans on incarcerated people’s lives. “This grant comes at a critical time for our program and the broader fight for intellectual freedom,” said Trautner. “As prison education programs expand nationwide, the persistent and often arbitrary censorship of books in carceral settings threatens both the quality and equity of that education. The freedom to read is not only a civil liberty, it is a precondition for meaningful learning, personal growth, and participation in society.”

CENSORSHIP OF LGBTQIA+ LITERATURE

In response to the increase of attacks on LGBTQIA+ individuals, the University of Delaware Library, Museums, and Press will host a week-long commemoration of Banned Books Week that interrogates and works to combat censorship of literature by and about LGBTQIA+ people. Bringing together groups across the university community, including activists, elected officials, and writers, the week will include expansive outreach to students and a campus-wide read-out. This year’s commemoration “attests to the acute importance of highlighting the harms of book censorship and celebrating the freedom to read,” according to a statement from the university.

“We need to be reminded, and reminded forcefully, about the rights that go with the First Amendment, and what that means to preserve our democracy, particularly right now with the attacks on the freedom to read and the freedom to speak we’re seeing,” Caldwell-Stone told LJ. “Everyone should think about applying for these grants. [They are] an opportunity to gain access to resources and support for activities during Banned Books Week that will aid the group in amplifying their messaging.”