2nd Unbanned Book Reading Smaller But Still Provocative
By: Steve Blanchard Watermark
http://watermarkonline.com/content.php?subsection=tampa

The 2nd annual Brandon Pride Unbanned Book Reading was held July 5 at the Bloomingdale Library. The crowd gathered in one of the library’s meeting rooms and listened to area activists and media specialists read select passages from so-called banned books. The event commemorated the 2nd anniversary of the now-infamous decision by Hillsborough County Commissioners to disband a 2005 book display promoting GLBT literature. The dismantling of that display was the motivation for former commissioner Ronda Storms to encourage the commission to prohibit county participation in Pride events. Volunteers read from the selection of banned books during an hour-and-a-half reading, followed by an audience discussion about the Pride ban. The event went smoothly, despite worries that the current commission would try to prevent the display from reappearing. “We had heard that the commission was confused as to why we were doing this again,” Ferguson said. “I had also heard they were going to try to stop it, but we never heard anything else.” Since the reading was held the day after Independence Day, Ferguson decided to decorate the display with American flags. He even incorporated small flags on toothpicks into the display to be used as bookmarks. Brandon Pride plans to present the Hillsborough County Commission with a thank-you card soon to express its appreciation for the use of the library for allowing the display and reading to proceed. When the organization did that last year with decorated poster board, the card ended up in a Dumpster. “What they do with this smaller card this year is up to them,” Ferguson said. “But it’s important that we let them know what we’re doing and that we appreciate the forum to express our views.”

http://www.ifilm.com/video/2751154
http://tbdem.blogspot.com/