Darion Aaron

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Georgia Community Rallies to Reinstate Celebrated Librarian Fired Over Inclusive Book Display

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Blackshear, GA, native LaVonnia Moore found her purpose working in the Okefenokee and Three Rivers Regional Library Systems (TRRLS), quickly advancing from 10 hours a week as a part-time employee in 2010 to running her own branch as the Pierce County Library manager until she was unexpectedly ousted from her position on June 18, following an online campaign by the anti-LGBTQ conservative group Alliance for Faith and Family over a library book display that included “When Aidan Became A Brother,” a picture book by author Kyle Lukoff featuring a transgender character.

The library patron-led display aligned with Georgia’s summer reading theme:“Color Our World.” Young library patrons, along with their parents, were encouraged to find colorful books illustrating the state-approved theme for the display.

“I knew the theme would be an issue,” Moore said. “How are you going to color your world without the rainbow? I asked TRRLS, “Are you sure we want to stick with this theme? They said, “Go ahead, we don’t get controversy.”

Moore tells GLAAD that she was summoned to the Pierce County Library on her day off by Three Rivers Library System Director Jeremy Snell, who informed her that she was being terminated over the inclusion of the transgender-inclusive book in the summer reading display.

Snell told the Blackshear Times that the display of the book was the reason for the decision.

In an interview with reporter Ross Williams at The Georgia Recorder, one of several local news outlets working in tandem with GLAAD to amplify this story, Moore acknowledges the request of a young child accompanied by their parents to include “When Aidan Became A Brother” in the book display. Moore also said she didn’t know it at the time, but the book is about a young transgender boy whose family is expecting a new baby.

The book is written for young children and discusses Aidan’s gender identity not matching his sex at birth. It doesn’t contain anything graphic or explicit. The cover features Aidan with his family, wearing a shirt with a rainbow design.

“All I saw was Aidan becoming a big brother,” Moore said. “I saw a family with a kid wearing a rainbow sweater, and the mom was pregnant. It was a mixed family. I was like, ‘OK, sure, put it on the table.’”

When Aidan Became A Brother
The book cover of “When Aidan Became A Brother” by author Kyle Lukoff. (Image: Lee and Low Books)

Moore said she had no intention of promoting any ideology but kept books relevant to all kinds of people in the community, including LGBTQ people, immigrants, and people who speak various languages, according to The Georgia Recorder.

“We’re a public library. We need to have all items available for everyone in the community,” Moore tells GLAAD. “And just because you don’t want that community to exist, they still exist. It’s my job to serve everybody. No matter who or what they are. I grew up with the library not being [safe], and I’m like, not on my watch.”

Moore says she was living “paycheck to paycheck” before her abrupt termination and has since established a GoFundMe to help cover daily expenses, raising over $27,000 of her $30,000 goal to date, which will also go towards covering legal costs to fight what she and her attorney are describing as an unlawful firing.

Attorney Wade Herring, who represents Moore, told The Advocate that the firing was unlawful and politically driven.

“It may be a First Amendment issue. It may be a Title VII issue, which protects employment,” Herring said. “I think it was content-based censorship and politically motivated, and she lost her job.”

Herring insists Moore followed library policy and simply facilitated community participation. “She had a local family and a local child who was enthusiastic about the library and the summer reading program,” Herring said. “What was she supposed to do, tell the child, ‘No, your book doesn’t belong?’ She was encouraging and supporting a child.”

GLAAD highlighted how Moore’s service helps all in the community, and how the unjust termination is harmful.

“No one should lose their job for doing their job,” GLAAD told The Advocate. “Librarians and other educators are professionals and public servants who work for every child and family in the community, offering materials that help children learn about themselves, their peers, and the world around them. The world is a far more interesting and colorful place than book banners ever want to see. Book banners and other opponents of LGBTQ people and equality shouldn’t get to censor, dim, or dictate what is available to other families and readers. Libraries should always be a place where everyone in the community can feel safe to explore, learn, and grow.”

Creating a safe space for all Pierce County residents is why the 15-year library professional views her work as an investment not only in the current patrons but also the younger Moore, who never felt welcome in her home library as a teen.

“I would go there, pick up my book, and leave,” Moore said. “It just wasn’t a place that felt like it was welcoming to young people. They didn’t have programs [for youth]. I want everybody that walks through the library to feel like it’s there for them,” and that includes LGBTQ families, Moore said.

LaVonnia Moore pictured with young library patrons in her previous role as Pierce County Library manager.
LaVonnia Moore (center) pictured with young library patrons in her previous role as Pierce County Library manager. (Image: LaVonnia Moore)

Community Pressure to Reverse Termination

In recent days, Moore has experienced an avalanche of community support following the revelation of electronic communications between library and county officials directly involved in her firing, which journalists uncovered through an open records request by The Georgia Recorder and The Advocate.

The internal communications paint a picture of officials responding directly to political pressure rather than to any professional misconduct,” according to a review by The Advocate. “Moore, for her part, said she was told she was terminated solely for “poor decision in the line of performance duty.”

The county produced 77 files showing about four times as many people contacted the government in favor of reinstating Moore than did in favor of firing her, reports The Georgia Recorder. 

“The emails, text messages, and voicemail reveal more about the decision to let Moore go and the resulting backlash. That correspondence also shows that local officials are considering reinstating Moore but have not yet done so,” The Georgia Recorder also reports.

“It is within the power of this board to make action calling for reinstatement if that is a desired result of the executive session discussion,” Snell wrote. “At this point, I have received more communication regarding reinstatement (than) I did regarding the original issue earlier this week.”

Moore’s firing has already exacted a steep personal price. She said her reputation has been damaged, and she now faces the prospect of leaving her hometown of 46 years because no other library jobs are available nearby.

As for “When Aidan Became A Brother,” Moore said the book is still on the shelf inside Pierce County Library.

“That book still exists in the collection — because it belongs there. It reflects real families. Real kids. Real love,” Moore wrote on her GoFundMe page. “Although I did not choose the book myself, I stand ten toes down on this truth: The library is a public space. All community members should feel welcome inside it and have equal access to its resources.”

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Pioneers and Trailblazers: LGBTQ Southerners of Past and Present Celebrated in Pride Season Exhibit in Middle Georgia

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Members of Macon’s LGBTQ community gathered inside The Tubman Museum of African American Art, History, and Culture on June 5 to celebrate the start of Pride season and the induction of three local advocates at the forefront of activism, art, and education who have contributed significantly to LGBTQ visibility and progress.

Portraits of Marques Redd, co-founder and co-executive director of Rainbow Serpent, Richard Frazier, artistic and executive director of Theatre Macon, and Dr. Thomas Bullington, senior lecturer of English and Liberal Arts at Mercer University, were among 21 influential Macon LGBTQ leaders featured in the Pioneers and Trailblazers exhibit. Created in partnership with Storytellers Macon, inductees also shared their journeys of self-acceptance and advocacy throughout the evening.

Richard Frazier shares his story as a theatre professional in Macon and his journey toward self-acceptance as a gay man of mixed-race heritage during the Pioneers and Trailblazers Photo History Exhibit.
Richard Frazier shares his story as a theatre professional in Macon and his journey toward self-acceptance as a gay man of mixed-race heritage during the Pioneers and Trailblazers Photo History Exhibit. (Image: Darian Aaron)

“We’ve been doing this exhibit for the past four years,” said DeMarcus Beckham, co-founder and special events chair of Macon Pride. “Each year, we add two to three individuals who we feel have contributed not just to Macon but our region’s history and the preservation of our communities’ civil rights.”

Since 2019, Macon Pride has hosted its annual Pride festival during the last week of September, and this year, the tradition will continue in addition to special programming throughout the month of June. For inductee Richard Frazier, the availability of multiple events created specifically for LGBTQ Maconites and their allies not only represents a thriving queer community but also creates a different narrative of life as a queer person in a small Southern town.

“Macon is an interesting community because it is a small town, but it’s not a small town in the way that I think people think it is,” Frazier said. “The culture here and the amount of emphasis that our community places on the arts and on creating community for everybody really sets it apart, I think, from most small towns, specifically in Georgia. It has a big city feel where you never know who you’ll get to meet, but it also has this lovely sense of community,” he said.

Multimedia artist and scholar Marques Redd shares his story of reconciling his sexuality with his faith and the affirmation he received through discovering untold stories of queerness in art during the Pioneers and Trailblazers Photo History Exhibit.
Multimedia artist and scholar Marques Redd shares his story of reconciling his sexuality with his faith and the affirmation he received through discovering untold stories of queerness in art during the Pioneers and Trailblazers Photo History Exhibit. (Image: Darian Aaron)

Macon native and inductee Marques Redd works to advance Black LGBTQ culture by exploring multimedia art, traditional African spirituality, and emerging tech. He tells GLAAD that the existence of an organization like Macon Pride would have significantly impacted his life during his formative years.

“When I was growing up, such an organization did not exist, and I think that really left a gap for people and the community,” Redd said. “There were no obvious places where people could turn for support, community, help, or fellowship.”

This year and every year going forward, Beckham says organizers want to be intentional about Macon Pride being an organization available to the community every day of the year.

Attendees inside the atrium of the Tubman Museum for Macon Pride’s Pioneer & Trailblazers Photo History Exhibit.
Attendees inside the atrium of the Tubman Museum for Macon Pride’s Pioneer & Trailblazers Photo History Exhibit. (Image: Darian Aaron)

“Having local Pride, there’s a responsibility to show that we have a community here,” Beckham said. “We will hold space. We are your doctors, we are your lawyers, we are the people who are your community servants.”

Like Redd, whose family owned the now-closed Miracles Art Gallery in the 1990s, which housed one of the largest collections of Black art in the Southeast, in addition to his LGBTQ portrait, Redd has also curated a special exhibit of his family’s impressive Black art collection on the second level of the Tubman Museum simply titled “Miracles.”

“Multiple parts of my life are coming together in such a beautiful way, and I’m just excited to share this with everybody,” Redd said.

Beckham beams when discussing the Tubman Museum’s support of the queer community by hosting the LGBTQ photo exhibit and the opportunity provided in the space to celebrate the intersecting identities of the artists and art within its walls.

“To host an event in one of the largest African American museums in the southeast is baffling,” he said. “People will be able to see community spaces like this opening up for [LGBTQ] individuals and for us to have those conversations about intersectionality.”

Inductee Richard Frazier tells GLAAD that the evening was a reminder “to keep spreading love and to keep creating spaces where people feel safe and welcome,” specifically in places where the opposite experience is often expected.

“You can be your most authentic self even in this small town, and you don’t have to go somewhere else to be a part of a larger community or a safe space,” Frazier said. That’s something that I’ve really appreciated about what Macon Pride has done.

Dr. Thomas Bullington poses with a “Shade” fan before the start of Macon Pride’s Pioneer & Trailblazers Photo History Exhibit.
Dr. Thomas Bullington poses with a “Shade” fan before the start of Macon Pride’s Pioneer & Trailblazers Photo History Exhibit. (Image: Darian Aaron)

“This goes beyond anything that I could have imagined as a child and a young teenager,” Redd said. “It’s really thrilling to see, and it shows that times are changing. It’s taken community-wide pressure and organizing to make this happen, and I think it shows the power of what we can do when we all come together.”

At least six more Pride-related events are scheduled in Macon in June before more than 4,000 attendees from over 13 different counties in Georgia descend on Macon for the major Pride celebration. Beckham wants folks to know that Pride in Macon is more than “standing on a float dancing to Lady Gaga songs.”

“It’s an opportunity to find resources in your community and to find connections with other people like you,” he said. “But [it’s an opportunity] also to challenge norms because we are here. We have always been here and will continue to hold up space. And as long as there’s breath in my lungs, Macon Pride will exist, and we will have a community here.”