George Takei
CHICAGO – Pioneering actor, author, and activist George Takei served as honorary chair of Banned Books Week (Oct. 5 to 11).
“Books are an essential foundation of democracy,” said Takei. “Our ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ depends on a public that is informed and empathetic, and books teach us both information and empathy. Yet the right to read is now under attack from school boards and politicians across America.
“I’m proud to serve as honorary chair of Banned Books Week, because I remember all too well the lack of access to books and media that I needed growing up. First as a child in a barbed-wire prison camp, then as a gay young man in the closet, I felt confused and hungry for understanding about myself and the world around me.
“Now, as an author, I share my own stories so that new generations will be better informed about their history and themselves. Please stand with me in opposing censorship, so that we all can find ourselves — and each other — in books.”
Takei is recognized as an award-winning actor, outspoken civil rights activist, social media icon, and New York Times bestselling author. He has leveraged his popularity as a star of the “Star Trek” franchise and a social media influencer to advocate for several causes, including the rights of Japanese Americans and LGBTQIA+ individuals.
His award-winning New York Times bestseller “They Called Us Enemy” (Top Shelf Productions, 2019) uses both words and images to depict Takei’s childhood as one of 125,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned in concentration camps by the U.S. government during World War II.
This graphic memoir has been targeted by censors multiple times since publication, most recently in Monroe County School District in Tennessee, where it was among nearly 600 titles removed in an attempt to comply with the state’s vaguely worded Age-Appropriate Materials Act.
Takei’s latest acclaimed graphic memoir. ”It Rhymes With Takei” (Top Shelf Productions, 2025), which Publishers Weekly described in its starred review as challenging “Americans to look to how past humanitarian injustices speak to current political debates,” has not appeared on banned books lists yet.
But the memoir’s depiction of Takei’s life as a closeted gay man and decision to come out at the age of 68 will likely meet resistance in places where state and local laws target the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ materials in schools and libraries.
Youth honorary chair Iris Mogul raised awareness about censorship threats throughout Banned Books Week. She is a Florida teen who started a banned books club in her community after the state implemented laws that resulted in the removal of hundreds of books about race, history, and sexuality from schools.
Mogul continued her advocacy work as a student leader in the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Student Advocates for Speech and received an honorable mention from the Miami Herald Silver Knight Awards in May.
Since 2021, the American Library Association and PEN America have tracked a sharp escalation in attempts to ban books, with thousands of unique titles targeted annually. Books by or about LGBTQI+ individuals and people of color make up nearly half of those titles.
The majority of book censorship attempts now originate from organized movements. According to ALA, pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members, and administrators initiated 72% of demands to censor books in school and public libraries in 2024.
Since it was founded in 1982, Banned Books Week has drawn attention to attempts to remove books and other materials from libraries, schools, and bookstores. Now in its 43rd year, the theme for Banned Books Week 2025 is “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.”
George Orwell’s cautionary tale “1984” serves a prescient warning about the dangers of censorship, and this year’s theme was a reminder that the right to read belongs to all of us, that censorship has no place in contemporary society, and that we must defend our rights.
Let Freedom Read Day, a day of action, was observed on Oct. 11. Everyone was encouraged to take at least one action to fight censorship.
For more information, visit BannedBooksWeek.org or follow Banned Books Week on social media (@BannedBooksWeek on Bluesky, Facebook, and X, @banned_books_week on Instagram) for the latest updates.