This year, America turns 250, but a slightly younger institution observes a significant milestone, too: 2026 marks 150 years since the founding of the American Library Association. There were plenty of reasons to celebrate at the organization’s annual meeting, held June 25-29 in Chicago. Though the impact of censorship could be felt throughout, the atmosphere was decidedly festive, with attendees sharing victories, honoring literary heroes, and pushing one another to continue fighting the good fight.

During the conference’s opening session, Chris Brown, commissioner of the Chicago Public Library, noted that while the ALA was founded in Philadelphia, “everything dope comes from Chicago.” Case in point: the Barack Obama Presidential Center, which opened last week and includes a branch of the Chicago Public Library. “President Obama and Mrs. Obama made a statement for their vision of the role of libraries now, that they’re inextricable from our neighborhoods and our cities,” said Brown.

ALA president Sam Helmick pointed out that despite the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (the federal agency that funds libraries across the U.S.), the agency’s grants were all reinstated, thanks to a federal court ruling. And the ALA is launching a fundraising campaign, “For Our Libraries. For 150 Years More.” The initiative, which Helmick called the most ambitious in the institution’s history, is committed to raising $60 million focused on several areas, including advocacy, intellectual freedom, and literacy.

Joining Helmick on stage, MS NOW host and author Rachel Maddow (whose Department of Fate is forthcoming this fall) had a confession for the librarians in the room: “I have a crush on all of you, and I always have.” Archivists and librarians have been vital to her work as a journalist, she said, including her podcast Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order, which explores the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Even more crucially, she added, librarians are trusted community members who help patrons make sense of an increasingly turbulent world: “One of the reasons I really wanted to come to ALA, one of the things I think is really central about what you all do, is you provide an eye-contact environment…[and that] undercuts a lot of the ways authoritarianism works.”

The ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom reported that 4,235 unique titles were banned last year, the second highest since the organization began recording censorship data in 1990, and authors in attendance were candid about the crushing effects of such censorship. At the session “Queer Kidlit Joy: Positive Representation in the Face of Censorship,” Rebecca Bendheim (When You’re Brave Enough) told attendees that she was flooded with death threats after the conservative site the Daily Wire reported on a video in which she discussed the design for her book cover (“I wanted it to be gay enough for queer kids and teens to clock it, but for homophobic parents to just think it’s a friendship story”); she was forced to hire security for one of her book events. Still, she persists in her advocacy, talking to the state board of education in Texas, where she lives, about trying to stop book banning bills. “It really wears you down, being so scared,” she said. “What has made it worth it is the support of people like all of you, other librarians who came into the state board of education with me.”

Librarians are persevering—and providing their colleagues with a road map for doing the same. At the session “From Crisis to Coalition: Fighting Censorship in Public Libraries,” four Alabama library directors described how, in response to proposed state legislation targeting books deemed inappropriate, they formed the Public Library Directors Association of Alabama, a grassroots organization. They emphasized the importance of hiring a lobbyist who could give them a voice in the state legislature and provide real-time updates on the status of bills. Thanks to the organization’s work, several bills were defeated, including HB425, which would have held public librarians criminally liable for making these books available to minors.

The conference was also an opportunity for librarians, authors, and their supporters to draw strength from community. At “Serving the Health Needs of Tweens and Teens Through Literature,” Jaclyn Sisskind, assistant professor of pediatrics at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, shared some depressing statistics. According to the Trevor Project, 36% of LGBTQ+ teens have considered suicide; that number rises to 40% among transgender and nonbinary teens. But, she added, 78% of queer teens have reported exposure to encouraging, positive language, both in real life and through the books they read. “I’m certain…that number would have been different when there weren’t enough books to make them feel safe and seen,” she said.

In conversation with Helmick at an event on Sunday, George M. Johnson, whose memoir, All Boys Aren’t Blue, frequently tops the ALA’s list of most banned books, confided that as a queer child and teen, they’d felt deprived of heroes. “It wasn’t that I didn’t know who James Baldwin was, but I only knew about him as this great writer, absent the fact that he was queer,” they said. Johnson’s book Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I’d Known introduces the next generation of readers to LGBTQ+ figures like Countee Cullen and Zora Neale Hurston. Johnson announced that the work will be soon adapted for the Broadway stage; describing the production, they told attendees to imagine “if Langston Hughes had a talk show like Wendy Williams’.”

The author reminded attendees that marginalized authors have always faced oppression; in the 18th century, the enslaved poet Phillis Wheatley was wrongly accused of plagiarizing because many believed a Black woman was incapable of composing such powerful words. Musing on the nation’s semiquincentennial, Johnson stressed the importance of remembering our history—and capturing current events for future generations. “Whether it’s the Tea Party [or] democratic socialism…I could see it easily being erased as just a blip on the radar if we don’t do our jobs.”

Nowhere was the sense of community stronger than during a conversation between LeVar Burton and United for Libraries President Deborah Doyle. Burton, whose memoir, Take My Word for It will be released this fall, spoke about his long career trajectory, from starring as Kunta Kinte in the 1977 miniseries Roots to hosting the award-winning children’s educational show Reading Rainbow and taking the role of Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He sees himself as someone who has “been given the opportunity and privilege of portraying the Black experience in America, from our enslavement to the stars. And LeVar, the Reading Rainbow guy, is in the middle of that continuum. Who gets to do that? I genuinely feel a deep sense of purpose in my life.”

The audience members who lined up to ask him questions were frequently stirred to tears—as was Burton himself. One mentioned that Burton’s work on Reading Rainbow inspired her to give up a corporate job and become a school librarian. Another told him how moved she was to see “Geordi La Forge and Mr. Burton and Mr. Kinte…all on the stage right now.” Demonstrating why he connects with so many, Burton engaged her in conversation, asking her the origins of her name and leaving her with potent words of wisdom: “You’re here, and you matter.…Your parents gave you a hell of a moniker.…Go out there and make some trouble.”

With the meeting behind us, it’s clear that there’s more work to be done when it comes to combating censorship. But librarians and their supporters should remain fortified by the guidance of those who refuse to be cowed. As Johnson said, “Sometimes we choose the fights that we are in, and sometimes the fight chooses us. The fight chose me.”

Above all, librarians feeling understandably overwhelmed should take heart from the words of author Candace Fleming (author of The Forgotten War, out Sept. 1) as she accepted the Children’s Literature Legacy Award at the Newbery-Caldecott-Legacy Banquet on Sunday evening. “In a world that rewards wealth…we have chosen to sit at the kids’ table. That’s because we know that is the most important seat at the table. From here we cast counterspells against the world’s cynicism, creating stories that celebrate our differences, that…show the world as it truly is and was and can be, and we do it by working in the world of ideas and of imagination and of truth.”

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.