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Miami Herald
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
On Juneteenth, their dream of bringing a bookstore to Liberty City becomes reality
A large-scale painting of the late Danny Agnew hangs on the back wall of the 750-square-foot space of the Roots Bookstore located along the iconic 15th Avenue Corridor in Liberty City. Inside the store, a few people, including his brothers Phillip and Cameron and their dad Barney, gathered inside placing books onto the shelves ahead of the store's Juneteenth opening. For years before his untimely death in a car accident, the late Danny Agnew had been conjuring up the idea for a bookstore. He'd come back home from his native Chicago with 'a ton of books' and would speak it into existence: 'He was like, 'Man, I want to do a bookstore,'' partner Isaiah Thomas told the Herald. At the time, their nonprofit Roots Collective, which was founded by Danny Agnew, his brother Phillip and Thomas, was located at the Blackhouse on Seventh Avenue, and only had one shelf with books. 'We didn't have the space back then, but that moment planted the seed.' Now, two years after Agnew's death, Phillip Agnew and Thomas opened up the storefront in Liberty City, with at least 2,000 books for sale, including several copies of 'Their Eyes Are Watching God,' 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,' and 'The Bluest Eye,' other books recently banned from Florida's classrooms and school libraries. Visitors can find books from indigenous and Hispanic authors as well as local authors inside the bookstore, which will also sell food and Roots Collective merchandise in the coming months. Thomas emphasized the store is a labor of love from community members and volunteers who helped raise more than $12,000 of their $14,000 goal. 'I think our community gets confused and brainwashed with this 'self-made' concept, but Roots, this bookstore, is highlighting what community really looks like when we come together for a big purpose,' he said. 'They're planting seeds' The three friends met more than a decade ago when Thomas, a Miami native, was feeding the homeless during the holidays. Danny and Phillip Agnew showed up to help and the trio clicked instantly. The brothers often referred to Thomas as the 'other Agnew.' Coincidentally, Phillip Agnew and Thomas had just missed each other at their alma mater, FAMU, with Phillip Agnew being a senior when Thomas was a freshman. After college, Thomas had an opportunity to teach in the Mississippi Delta, but instead decided to come back home. 'I wanted to make sure other kids felt that love from their community,' he said. 'I always say, having your community stand behind you and support you, that feeling… I can't even explain that feeling. I wanted to make sure that other kids from Miami received that love from the village and that support where they can make it anywhere.' That love of community blended well with the Agnew brother's love of books, fostered by their father Barney, a book salesman in Chicago. 'That's all we knew growing up, going around with my dad to different places around the city and selling books that he had gotten from one place to other bookstores,' Phillip Agnew said. Their father gave them books from his collection to start their bookstore and some books have been donated. 'They're planting the seeds in an area that a lot of people have thought couldn't support this type of growth,' Barney Agnew told the Herald as he sat in a chair sorting through books at the Liberty City bookstore. 'Everyone that comes to the bookstore or patronizes the bookstore looks around to the bookstore. It creates another option that people around here might not believe existed,' he continued. 'This is not just roots. This is a community place.' It is part of why the very existence of the bookstore is a form of resistance, Phillip Agnew said. 'This is a state, and this is a country that wants to take Black people and poor people back to a whole other time, that we've fought to be delivered from and deliver ourselves from,' Phillip Agnew said, adding that it was important for them to have books that have been taken out of school libraries in the bookstore. Since word spread of the bookstore's opening, Agnew said libraries and teachers have contacted them because they can't keep books deemed 'dangerous' by the Florida government on their shelves. 'It's just crucial that our young people, in particular, but our people have access to this knowledge and this understanding because we will repeat these patterns if we don't understand where our people have come from and where they've fought to get us to,' Phillip Agnew said. While the bookstore is not limited to works of Black authors, they do have some criteria: no books by presidents and no books by people known to do damage to Black communities. 'In that way, we are at least attempting to be a radical space where we are very clear that there are some people that are for us and there are some people that are against us, and if you're against us, we're not going to have your book in the shop,' Phillip Agnew said. It's also why opening on Juneteenth was crucial. Prior to it becoming a national holiday —marking June 19, 1865, the day when the last enslaved people in the U.S. were notified that they were freed— the Roots Collective would regularly hold Juneteenth events, such as barbecues and events at the Blackhouse. 'We had music, food, and we'll have hundreds of people come out just for the Juneteenth barbecue,' Thomas said. From there, they realized their Juneteenth events were gaining momentum in Miami. 'Juneteenth is just one of those days that we make sure we're doing something for the community, and it was the perfect day to open the store,' Thomas said. 'I want people to feel like it's theirs' Beyond being a literary hub, the bookstore's opening will include a resource fair with partners such as the human rights nonprofit Dream Defenders and Dade County Street Response, a nonprofit that serves those affected by poverty. Phillip Agnew and Thomas want the bookstore to be a refuge for Liberty City, where people can relax and be in community with one another. For Thomas, who was born and raised in Miami, the bookstore is also an opportunity to reinvigorate the 15th Avenue corridor. 'I grew up seeing 15th Avenue just be the life of Miami at one point with the cars, the music and people,' he said, adding he saw a chance to invigorate the community as the redevelopment of the new Liberty Square began to take over the area. Liberty Square is one of Miami-Dade's oldest public housing and has been razed to make way for a new mixed-income development that will reshape the historically Black neighborhood in Miami. 'I felt if we can get there now, we can really represent Black Miami, in a good way at the right time during this transition,' he said. Agnew said he wants it to have a familiarity but with an updated vibe. 'I want for people to come in the store and be like, 'Oh, I remember the other Black bookstores that we had in Miami' but also see the newness,' he said. 'I just want people to feel like it's theirs already. We want the community to feel like it's their spot.' IF YOU GO: What: Roots Bookstore & Market When: June 19, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Where: 6610 NW 15th Ave., Miami
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Navy cancels speech by podcaster who planned to reference its ban on more than 300 books
Author Ryan Holiday was going to give an address to the Naval Academy — until the military branch discovered he was going to reference the academy's recent sweeping book ban. For years Holiday has been giving lectures on the virtues of Stoicism — he hosts a podcast called The Daily Stoic — and planned on speaking to the sophomores this week on the 'theme of wisdom.' But the Navy canceled those plans an hour before he was set to speak, he said in a New York Times op-ed Saturday. Ahead of his address, he sent over his prepared slides, which included a reference to the academy's removal of 381 books. In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the 'radical indoctrination' in K-12 schools, prompting schools to pull books from classrooms that don't align with Trump's agenda. Although the Naval Academy is a college, in March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the school to review its books at the Nimitz Library to ensure that it complies with the president's order. On April 4, the Navy issued a press release listing the hundreds of books that were removed. That list includes How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. According to Holiday, his reference to the book ban made some at the school 'extremely worried about reprisals if my talk appeared to flout' the president's order. He was asked to remove them from his speech; he declined and it was cancelled, he wrote. The school 'made a schedule change that aligns with its mission of preparing midshipmen for careers of service,' a Navy spokesperson told the Times. 'The Naval Academy is an apolitical institution.' 'I had no interest in embarrassing anyone or discussing politics directly. I understand the immense pressures they are under, especially the military employees, and I did not want to cause them trouble,' Holiday wrote in the op-ed. 'I did, however, feel it was essential to make the point that the pursuit of wisdom is impossible without engaging with (and challenging) uncomfortable ideas.' He walked through some of his prepared remarks, which included making the point that there was political pressure in the 1950s to pull books from the shelves, but then-President Dwight Eisenhower refrained from doing so. 'My idea is that censorship and hiding solves nothing,' the president told reporters shortly after his 1953 inauguration. Eisenhower then pointed to all of the materials that circulated before World War II that went unread but could have perhaps helped anticipate the tragedies that were about to strike. 'What I am talking about is let's educate ourselves if we are going to run a free government, and let's [not] be afraid of its weaknesses as well as its strength,' he said. Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was not among the books pulled from the library, Holiday noted. 'As heinous as that book is, it should be accessible to scholars and students of history. However, this makes the removal of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings inexplicable,' he wrote. 'Whatever one thinks of D.E.I., we are not talking about the writings of external enemies here, but in many cases, art, serious scholarship and legitimate criticism of America's past.'
The Independent
20-04-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Navy cancels speech by podcaster who planned to reference its ban on more than 300 books
Author Ryan Holiday was going to give an address to the Naval Academy — until the military branch discovered he was going to reference the academy's recent sweeping book ban. For years Holiday has been giving lectures on the virtues of Stoicism — he hosts a podcast called The Daily Stoic — and planned on speaking to the sophomores this week on the 'theme of wisdom.' But the Navy canceled those plans an hour before he was set to speak, he said in a New York Times op-ed Saturday. Ahead of his address, he sent over his prepared slides, which included a reference to the academy's removal of 381 books. In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the 'radical indoctrination' in K-12 schools, prompting schools to pull books from classrooms that don't align with Trump's agenda. Although the Naval Academy is a college, in March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the school to review its books at the Nimitz Library to ensure that it complies with the president's order. On April 4, the Navy issued a press release listing the hundreds of books that were removed. That list includes How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. According to Holiday, his reference to the book ban made some at the school 'extremely worried about reprisals if my talk appeared to flout' the president's order. He was asked to remove them from his speech; he declined and it was cancelled, he wrote. The school 'made a schedule change that aligns with its mission of preparing midshipmen for careers of service,' a Navy spokesperson told the Times. 'The Naval Academy is an apolitical institution.' 'I had no interest in embarrassing anyone or discussing politics directly. I understand the immense pressures they are under, especially the military employees, and I did not want to cause them trouble,' Holiday wrote in the op-ed. 'I did, however, feel it was essential to make the point that the pursuit of wisdom is impossible without engaging with (and challenging) uncomfortable ideas.' He walked through some of his prepared remarks, which included making the point that there was political pressure in the 1950s to pull books from the shelves, but then-President Dwight Eisenhower refrained from doing so. 'My idea is that censorship and hiding solves nothing,' the president told reporters shortly after his 1953 inauguration. Eisenhower then pointed to all of the materials that circulated before World War II that went unread but could have perhaps helped anticipate the tragedies that were about to strike. 'What I am talking about is let's educate ourselves if we are going to run a free government, and let's [not] be afraid of its weaknesses as well as its strength,' he said. Adolf Hitler 's Mein Kampf was not among the books pulled from the library, Holiday noted. 'As heinous as that book is, it should be accessible to scholars and students of history. However, this makes the removal of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings inexplicable,' he wrote. 'Whatever one thinks of D.E.I., we are not talking about the writings of external enemies here, but in many cases, art, serious scholarship and legitimate criticism of America's past.'
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Here's the list of books the Naval Academy removed from its library during DEI purge
The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, has purged hundreds of books from its library — including "How to be Anti-Racist" by Ibram X. Kendi — as part of a push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)-related content. The Naval Academy weeded out these books on March 31, in keeping with instructions from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, following executive orders from President Donald Trump. The Naval Academy also threw out another book Kendi authored, "Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America," as well as "Our Time is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America," by former Georgia Rep. Stacey Abrams. Kendi, the former founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, attracted national attention in 2020 for his books following the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police officers. Naval Academy Tosses 400 Books From Library Following Trump Dei Expulsion Orders Kendi joined Boston University that year but announced in January that he would head to Howard University to continue his research instead. Meanwhile, Boston University is poised to shut down its research center in June once contracts expire. Read On The Fox News App The Naval Academy also purged "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" by American writer and poet Maya Angelou, an autobiography detailing Angelou's childhood and life during the Jim Crow era. Other books booted by the Naval Academy are "Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity" by Afsanah Najmabodi; "Critical Race Theory and Education: A Marxist Response" by Mike Cole; "Men in Wonderland: The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentleman" by Catherine Robson; and "Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex" by Elizabeth Reis. Although Trump's January executive orders banned DEI content in K–12 schools receiving federal funds, military service academies were exempt since they are not classified as K–12 institutions. Naval Academy Closing Dei Offices To Align With Trump Executive Orders: Memo However, Hegseth's office instructed the service academy to eliminate the materials ahead of a visit to the institution on April 1, The Associated Press reported. It is unclear if Hegseth issued the directive himself or if it came from a staffer. The Navy confirmed to Fox News Digital that nearly 400 books were ditched as part of the effort. "We can confirm the U.S. Naval Academy has removed nearly 400 books from their Nimitz Library collection in order to ensure compliance with all directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president," a Navy spokesperson told Fox News Digital Wednesday. "Nimitz Library houses roughly 590,000 print books, 322 databases, and over 5,000 print journals and magazines to support the academic inquiries and intellectual development of Midshipmen." The U.S. Naval Academy trains undergraduate midshipmen to pursue careers as officers in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Here is the full list of books the Naval Academy pitched out during the purge: The Associated Press and Fox News' Rachel del Guidice contributed to this report. Original article source: Here's the list of books the Naval Academy removed from its library during DEI purge
Fox News
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Here's the list of books the Naval Academy removed from its library during DEI purge
The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, has purged hundreds of books from its library — including "How to be Anti-Racist" by Ibram X. Kendi — as part of a push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)-related content. The Naval Academy weeded out these books on March 31, in keeping with instructions from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, following executive orders from President Donald Trump. The Naval Academy also threw out another book Kendi authored, "Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America," as well as "Our Time is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America," by former Georgia Rep. Stacey Abrams. Kendi, the former founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, attracted national attention in 2020 for his books following the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police officers. Kendi joined Boston University that year but announced in January that he would head to Howard University to continue his research instead. Meanwhile, Boston University is poised to shut down its research center in June once contracts expire. The Naval Academy also purged "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" by American writer and poet Maya Angelou, an autobiography detailing Angelou's childhood and life during the Jim Crow era. Other books booted by the Naval Academy are "Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity" by Afsanah Najmabodi; "Critical Race Theory and Education: A Marxist Response" by Mike Cole; "Men in Wonderland: The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentleman" by Catherine Robson; and "Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex" by Elizabeth Reis. Although Trump's January executive orders banned DEI content in K–12 schools receiving federal funds, military service academies were exempt since they are not classified as K–12 institutions. However, Hegseth's office instructed the service academy to eliminate the materials ahead of a visit to the institution on April 1, The Associated Press reported. It is unclear if Hegseth issued the directive himself or if it came from a staffer. The Navy confirmed to Fox News Digital that nearly 400 books were ditched as part of the effort. "We can confirm the U.S. Naval Academy has removed nearly 400 books from their Nimitz Library collection in order to ensure compliance with all directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president," a Navy spokesperson told Fox News Digital Wednesday. "Nimitz Library houses roughly 590,000 print books, 322 databases, and over 5,000 print journals and magazines to support the academic inquiries and intellectual development of Midshipmen." The U.S. Naval Academy trains undergraduate midshipmen to pursue careers as officers in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Here is the full list of books the Naval Academy pitched out during the purge:
