George Takei will serve as honorary chair of the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, the Associated Press reports.
The Star Trek actor and author will follow in the footsteps of previous chairs Jason Reynolds, George M. Johnson, LeVar Burton, and Ava DuVernay.
The ALA launched Banned Books Week, which highlights books that have been censored in American schools and libraries, in 1982. The theme of this year’s program is “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.”
“With the escalation in attempts to ban books in libraries, schools, and bookstores around the country, George Orwell’s cautionary tale ‘1984’ serves a prescient warning about the dangers of censorship,” the ALA says. “This year’s theme reminds us that the right to read belongs to all of us, that censorship has no place in contemporary society, and that we must defend our rights.”
Takei has been an anti-censorship activist for years. His graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy, co-written with Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott and illustrated by Harmony Becker, has been a frequent target of challenges and bans. The book tells the story of his childhood experience of being incarcerated in a camp for Japanese Americans during World War II.
“I remember all too well the lack of access to books and media that I needed growing up,” Takei said in a statement. “First as a child in a barbed-wire prison camp, then as a gay young man in the closet, I felt confused and hungry for understanding about myself and the world around me. Please stand with me in opposing censorship, so that we all can find ourselves—and each other—in books.”
Banned Books Week will take place October 5-11.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
