Montgomery County Reinstates Indigenous History Book After Public Backlash

A Montgomery County committee classified a children’s book about indigenous history as “fiction.” After facing pressure from pro-book advocates they have put it back in the nonfiction section. 

According to the Chron, the book Colonization and the Wampanoag Story by Linda Coombs was classified as fiction by the Montgomery County Citizens Reconsideration Committee. The appointed committee has no librarians, literary or history scholars in its members and holds secret meetings. The Guardian reported changes to the committee were driven by a conservative Christian group.

“I can only assume it is because it is a telling of the history of indigenous people that they [the committee members] do not approve of,” Montgomery County resident Teresa Kenney. “Is this type of decision to recategorize a published book by a major respected publisher under their scope of work in the reconsideration policy? Whose history is fact or fiction?”

This decision led to serious backlash from different groups, including the Texas Freedom To Read Project, an anti-censorship group, indigenous rights advocates, and Penguin Random House, the book’s publisher.

These groups urged commissioners to reinstate the book to its nonfiction section.

“This is absolutely what needed to happen. We are so glad that the Montgomery County Commissioners Court realized that this was a terrible call by the citizens review committee and should have never happened in the first place,” Anne Russey, co-founder of Texas Freedom to Read Project, said.

Texas is the second state in the nation with most books banned from libraries, according to PEN America, a literary freedom non-profit. The state has removed more than 1,500 titles from 2021 to 2023, only surpassed by Florida which has removed 5,100 titles. 

One of the leading voices for challenging books in Montgomery is a mother named Michele Nuckolls who homeschools her children. She helped found a Christian conservative group that advocates removing books from libraries, especially about sexuality. She usually attends local school board meetings despite not having children in the district, according to the Houston Press.

“If government officials can arbitrarily dismiss a well-researched, factual account of history as fiction because it challenges a dominant narrative, then what other truths will they try to silence?” The Texas Freedom to Read Project founders wrote in an op-ed for MSNBC. “If they can decide that a history told from the perspective of an Indigenous writer should be treated like some kind of fabrication, then what other perspectives will they move to disregard?”