Miami historian to give away banned books this weekend at a new garden in Overtown
Over the last month, historian Marvin Dunn could be found toiling in a garden. Checking the soil. Planting the produce. Watering the flowers.
And now he’s ready to give away the fruits of his labor.
The “Teach the Truth” garden will officially open noon on Feb. 3 in Overtown as part of Dunn’s continued efforts to educate Floridians. Saturday’s opening will also be accompanied by a banned book giveaway where locals can get free literature that state legislatures have deemed “harmful.”
READ MORE: 83-year-old historian spoke to Miami middle schoolers about racism. Here’s how it went
“This garden has two goals,” the Florida International University professor emeritus said in a statement. “The first is to give away books that have been recently banned in Florida schools, and the second is to grow healthy produce to be given away to neighborhood residents.”
The idea for the garden came when Dunn noticed the amount of vacant lots in Overtown.
“Why allow vacant lots in Overtown to sit vacant?” Dunn told the Miami Herald. “Why not put them to useful purpose for the community?”
The garden itself has a little bit of everything – collard greens, tomatoes, parsley, roses – and spans a quarter of a city block at Northwest 3rd Avenue and 9th Street. Most of the produce will be distributed to the residents while some will be sold to cover the cost of maintenance.
Although Dunn recently traded away his pen for garden sheers, the book giveaway will be a key component of Saturday’s festivities. More than 3300 books were banned during the 2022-23 school year, according to PEN America, a nonprofit that works to protect freedom of speech. Florida school districts accounted for about 1,400 book bans, the most in the country and more than double that of Texas, the next closest. Most of the book banning can be linked to House Bill 7, a 2022 law that, among many other things, restricted lessons that will make students “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the individual played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin.”
“Education is about the pursuit of truth, not woke indoctrination,” Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. said in a March 2023 statement. “Under Governor DeSantis, Florida is committed to rigorous academic content and high standards so that students learn how to think and receive the tools necessary to go forth and make great decisions.”
Some of the books that will be given away include Tony Medina’s “Love to Langston,” Rio Cortez’s “The ABCs of Black History” and Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb,” the poem read at President Biden’s inauguration.
“What Florida has done is ban the idea of institutional racism,” Dunn said. “In banning ideas, the books were banned.”
This is just the latest effort as part of Dunn’s “Teach the Truth” campaign which aims to help Florida reconcile with its racist past. In 2023, he began to lead “Teach the Truth” tours that stop at Rosewood, Mims and other locations of racial violence across the state.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Teach the Truth” Garden opening/ banned book giveaway
WHEN: 12-5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024
WHERE: Northwest 3rd Avenue and 9th Street, Miami, FL 33136
