This is Part 3 of a series. You can read Part 1 here: Red, White & Kryptonite Part 1: Christian Nationalists Target Metropolis IL, and Part 2 here: Red, White & Kryptonite Part 2: The Action at Metropolis Library Moves to City Hall.
This series of diaries chronicles developments in Metropolis, IL, formally designated as the “Hometown of Superman” (I know, it’s not historically accurate with the comic strip narrative, but hey, they have the statue and an annual Superman Celebration in June!) following the January routine meeting of the Metropolis Public Library Board that turned out to be not-so-routine. Spurred by fears of a Drag Queen Story Hour because of a new Illinois law that is the first in the nation to prevent book banning, a very large group of Eastland Life Church and local Ministerial Alliance members showed up to oppose amending the Library Bill of Rights to be in compliance with the new law. The Eastland Life congregation is led by Brian Anderson, and he had been posting his online sermons that included extremely inflammatory language about the battle that needed to be fought to prevent Sodom and Gomorrah from coming to town in the Library, where “the Enemy wants to kill your children.” Rhetoric and concerns about supposedly inappropriate content coming to the library followed a familiar pattern for Christian Nationalists—a claim that “sexually explicit” material would pervade the children’s book section. Then Library Director Rosemary Baxter, a friend and ally of Brian Anderson, was instrumental in instigating concern about this type of content being forced on the library. Although the only example she ever gave publicly was a book a mom took home and was upset there was a “surprise ending” of a child character’s parents being “two dads”. This Library Bill of Rights has been in effect for many years in the Metropolis Library and in libraries across the country.
You can read an excellent summary of the controversy, without as many pictures and details as Parts 1 and 2 above here, as NBC senior investigative reporter Mike Hixenbaugh (author of new book just out: They Came for the Schools) published an online piece In Superman's 'hometown,' a pastor vows to fight Satan's influence at the local library. There are elements included that I was unaware of, that reflect that a professional investigative reporter wrote it--which I clearly am not. I have written these from the perspective of a citizen trying to figure out what was going on--what was rumor and what was fact--and piecing together isolated local reporting segments with information from talking to my contacts. It has been an interesting experience connecting with people I knew from high school, learning new names and faces (that gets tougher at my age. .) and trying to figure out what was going on and how to help make things go in the right direction.
My interest is as a Metropolis native who still lives nearby, in Kentucky. I am also co-leader of Four Rivers Indivisible and we have always had a significant number of active members from Metropolis/Massac County and nearby Pope County in Illinois.
As Part 2 concluded, after the Library Director, Rosemary Baxter, had been terminated --in part due to refusal to agree to the job requirements involving complying with the Library Bill of Rights-- Metropolis Mayor Don Canada (an Eastland Life Church member) chose to terminate three Board Members, including President Rhonda James, late on a Friday and publish an agenda for Monday’s City Council meeting naming 3 replacements. Citizens quickly organized and showed up at that meeting on March 25th to protest, and the mayor discovered he had not followed proper procedure to provide written charges to the City Council and was not even within the 5-10 day window needed to allow the Council an opportunity to reject his terminations. The 3 replacements named were also controversial, as Canada indicated he just kept a chronological list and “went down the list” and picked them without regard to qualifications, diversity of experience, or input from the Library Board as has been customary in the past. He had begun taking a new approach with the Board after the Illinois law prohibiting book banning was passed in 2023, and had already named 2 replacement board members that were members or allies of Eastland Life Church. The proposed new nominations and the terminations of the three board members was then tabled, to be taken up on April 22nd. The mayor indicated he would in the meantime present the charges justifying termination to the Council members, one of whom is Brian Anderson, pastor of Eastland Life Church.
Citizens Remain Engaged
Opposition to the mayor’s move resulted in local citizens organizing in various ways. A private Facebook group called Library League was formed to plan a response at the upcoming April 22nd meeting, where it was anticipated that the Mayor would attempt to complete the terminations. Meanwhile, one of the three Library Board members resigned officially, creating a vacancy. The Library Board met and unanimously agreed to recommend two qualified candidates for that vacancy, neither of whom had been on the mayor’s list presented on the tabled March 25th agenda. At the City Council meeting on April 8th, a letter of recommendation for those two candidates was presented to the City Council by Library Board Secretary Stephanie Johnson.
As the 22nd approached, no one was sure what the mayor intended to do, but there had been no indication any written charges had been filed or provided to the two remaining members he had attempted to terminate—Rhonda James and Kelley Sullivan. He made comments to some people in private meetings indicating he had decided to wait until any Board Member’s term was up before making any decisions. Rhonda James’ term ends in June.
The City Council Meeting on April 22nd was standing room only. There was nothing on the agenda relating to the library, not even any nomination for the vacant board position. NBC had shown up that day to film and was at the meeting. Citizen comments included Sumer Holt requesting that Brian Anderson, a member of the council, recuse himself on any votes relating to the library. A contingent from Eastland Life Church showed up, evidently a Monday Bible Study Group that decided their mission was to be at this meeting. The mayor’s wife was among them. I had brought some Indivisible AGREE/DISAGREE signs we had for town halls and community meetings. Here we are using them at our Rep. James Comer’s (yeah that guy who has been embarrassing himself on the Oversight Committee!) town halls in Bardwell and Paducah in 2017, when their failed healthcare initiative was in full swing. Here are some photos from back then:
I had passed out the signs but discovered many people did not get any, and was told the mayor’s wife had confiscated most of them. Evidently as they were being passed around, someone tapped her on the shoulder and said “These are not for you”. Offended, she decided to put the stack on the floor at her feet. One of her group kept theirs and used them to disagree with citizen comments, specifically Sumer Holt’s request for Anderson to recuse. I went down my row of chairs and asked if she had my signs and would she please give them back. She complied. I never did get back 2 of the Disagree signs that night or later. I did contact the mayor the next day, and had a few conversations with him that week. He told me about it being his wife’s Bible Study group and that he did not expect them to be at the council meeting. He also relayed that he told his wife that taking the signs was not appropriate or acceptable, and told me that she said she was “trying to protect him.” He also indicated to me that he was “leaning towards” appointing one of the two women recommended by the Library Board for the open position, so that was encouraging. He said he wanted to do more vetting of them first and did not feel he had enough information yet.
There is a live feed provided by local WMOK radio of this meeting with commentary by the content team on the Lois & Clark FB page—scroll down to the live feed from 5/13. Link: Lois & Clark FB page .
Four Rivers Indivisible and Lois & Clark Get Active in Metropolis
Four Rivers Indivisible joined Indivisible Illinois and their sub-group IL VOTE , since we were initiating activity in Illinois. ILVOTE is certified in Illinois as a State Civic Organization for voter registration purposes. In addition, ILVOTE works to increase voter awareness and promote voter turnout for every election at the federal, state and local levels. They work in coalition with other grassroots partners to host forums, deputy voter registrar trainings and voter registration drives that are open to all. They have been wonderful at providing information and support. I developed a binder with a variety of information materials on voting regulations and rights in Illinois, which of course are much more favorable than in Kentucky. I have information on voting rights for those with criminal records, the homeless, those with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ and particularly trans voting rights in Illinois, along with dates and links from the State Board of Elections. One thing I learned is that in Illinois, the Secretary of State oversees libraries but not voting! Voting is under the State Board of Elections.
On May 4th, the group participated in the opening of the Metropolis-Massac Co Farmer’s Market with our Voter Information Center, which we have done at events in Kentucky before. We always include free Voting Rocks! activities, with rock painting and painted rocks with a voting theme, and this time we added some of my surplus tomato plants and lettuces to sell. We plan to return this Saturday, May 18th and focus this time on information and registering people for the Permanent Vote-by-Mail option offered in Illinois.
Additionally, I have been involved with a team of Metropolis natives in starting a Facebook page called Lois and Clark Coalition for Accountability (LCCA), or Lois & Clark for short. The focus is on improving citizen education and participation. We have been posting information and links relating to the city council, library, and related issues such as the origins of the term “separation of church and state”. At the Farmer’s Market I got some feedback from those following the page and others I told about it, who uniformly said “We really need something like that here.” I had artwork for the thumbnail and banner at a local Paducah woman-owned business, Messy Cat Creations. The thumbnail painting is used for this diary. Here is the banner (note the symbolism):
The first two posts we made were memes to set the tone and focus:
We are starting to get people sending messages to the page with information or questions, and people messaging me to keep me informed. . .such as Tuesday this week when word went out that the NBC story they were filming at the council meeting on the 22nd was going to air that night. . .
New Library Board member named-- and NBC Story Airs
This week, on Monday night, the City Council met again. The mayor did indeed select one of the women the Library Board recommended, Pam Tyson, to fill the vacant board position. The vote was almost unanimous—Brian Anderson was the only “no” vote. It is noted that since this appointment is to fill a vacancy, the term ends in June. So once again, there will be concern over the mayor’s decision on both Tyson and Rhonda James, whose term also ends then. One of the council members, Jeremy Holley, brought up a request during New Business that the process for their advise and consent then vote responsibilities be researched by case law and formalized in a policy, and mentioned the Council members often needed more information to vet the candidates themselves when they make these decisions. He felt that a better process with clearer guidelines to find consensus might reduce some of the public animosity over their decision-making, particularly in relation to the Library Board. There is a post on the Lois & Clark FB page with a live feed provided by local radio station WMOK and a summary commentary by the Lois & Clark content team.
On Tuesday, May 14th, word spread late in the afternoon that NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt would be airing their story on Metropolis at 5:30. Here is the link: Fight over the role of library in small Illinois town. There was more emphasis on the issue of terminated Rosemary Baxter engaging in prayer with the children in the after-school program, and I was unaware there had been parents sending letters to the board about this. Baxter herself had always dismissed any concerns stating that “everyone signed the release form”. Which as I mentioned in Part 1 begs the question that many parents might avoid the program completely if they wouldn’t want to sign the form, not wanting their child to be singled out, or some might sign but only due to the social pressure to conform with the director’s wishes.
Following the NBC story, local coverage on community reactions continued on May 15th by local NBC affiliate WPSD6 with the first on-air interview provided by interim director Colby Kennedy: City of Metropolis, library leaders react to making national headlines
As of now, the Metropolis Public Library seems to be on calmer, less controversial footing. The interim director, Colby Kennedy, is young, tech-savvy, and served as interim previously. We are hoping he applies and is hired to be the next permanent director. The Genealogist-in-the-Library program has been revived and adults in general are getting more programming attention, the after-school program has temporary volunteer public school teachers doing creative and engaging after-school programming, and there is an Amazon wish list for books to replace the thousands Baxter removed—down to where there was only one Halloween book. I would say the Eastland Life congregation is still pretty riled up and their strategy going forward is not known. But the mayor and a good portion of the town seem to be trying to put disruptive controversy behind.
I want to again state how important our struggling local media sources are to keeping everyone informed. WMOK Metropolis radio, The Metropolis Planet, The Paducah Sun, WPSD-6 TV, WSIL-3 TV, and WKMS public radio have all provided coverage. We are grateful for the hard-working reporters and staff.
I hope this story helps inspire other communities struggling with these issues. And I hope to start finding more time now to get back to teaching myself hammered dulcimer. . . .but yeah, I still have that big garden and an election year to deal with. Four Rivers Indivisible is going to do a billboard in Paducah to target Rep James Comer and promote Erin Marshall-- who came out with a great intro ad focusing on abortion. You can read a Courier-Journal Op-Ed by Joe Gerth about her candidacy here: Why Jamie Comer's latest foe is like no other he's ever faced. If you can donate a little bit, here is the link: Four Rivers Donation Link.
Thank you for reading this diary! Here’s one of my favorite protest songs-- hope it inspires you as it does me.