18-05-2025
A man checked out 100 library books. Then he burned them.
Last month, a man in Ohio checked out 100 books about Black, Jewish, and LGBTQ culture and history from the Beachwood Public Library. According to authorities, he allegedly posted a video on
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Police have not identified the man.
During this very politically fraught moment, with the Trump administration demonizing history and culture that they perceive as a threat to white supremacy, it's one of the first known recent instances of book burning. But with history as a solemn guide, it seems unlikely that it will be the last.
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In a statement, Kent Smith, a Democratic Ohio state senator, condemned the book burning as
'Libraries are designed to be community-based safe harbors of free thought. Libraries offer ideas,' he said. 'This is their fundamental role in our democracy and why they are so vital. This act of violence is not just a crime against the public catalog of literature that was destroyed but also is a violation of the marketplace of ideas that is a bedrock principle of American life.'
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That bedrock principle, and not just books, is under assault.
This incident has led some to evoke
The clear difference between what happened in Germany in 1933 and Ohio in 2025 is that the latter was neither sanctioned nor carried out by the government. But in purging certain books for what his administration calls "
The titles of the books that the man checked out from the library have not been released to the public.
Katie Cohen, left, and Krysta Petrie stand next to the Little Queer Library book-share box they built outside their Waltham home.
Lane Turner/Globe Staff
In front of their Waltham home in 2020, Krysta Petrie and Katie Cohen built what they called the '
This was happening as there were public debates in the city over a parent's request that two books, "
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'Our mission with this is to try to get more books out there that have positive LGBT representation, because although we've made strides in a lot of ways of being more accepting, there's still a lot of people and a lot of things out there in general out in the United States that are bad things that are impacting the community and representation,' Cohen
'And reading about somebody who's different than you is important,' she said. 'Also seeing yourself in the books is really important.'
A purge never simply takes away a book. It is about eradicating the concepts and cultures the books explore, whitewashing history, and ignoring accountability or acknowledgment of harms done and how to correct them in this still less-than-perfect union.
And it's about burying the achievements of people of color, women, Jews, Muslims, and the LGBTQ community in favor of deifying the version of history in which the Great White Man can only stand tall because he's standing on everyone else.
But just as book purges can lead to book burning, such acts can also engender even more nefarious responses from those threatened by ideas and cultures that no longer center or look like them.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
