You’re reading one story in WPLN’s series exploring the wide-ranging impacts of a hard-right political faction in Middle Tennessee. Find all parts here.
A large crowd gathered outside the Hendersonville Public Library on a drizzly Saturday morning to hear the actor and evangelist Kirk Cameron at a story time event in February 2023.
They circled around the flagpole, recited the pledge of allegiance and sang the national anthem, and Cameron led them in prayer.
More: Book ban advocates could soon take over Sumner County’s school board
Inside, before the library opened to the public, swimmer Riley Gaines — who’s known for advocating against transgender athletes in women’s sports — was filming a promotion. In a video that has since gone viral, she gets upset at library staff for making noise in the background.
It’s unclear whether the disruption was intentional, but the damage was done.
The story time and its aftermath ultimately led to the firing of Hendersonville’s library director, Allan Morales. It also laid bare the power of the Sumner County Constitutional Republicans, a far-right group that has greatly influenced public life in the Middle Tennessee county.
All of the library board members who voted to fire Morales were appointed in an unusual process just a few months earlier by County Commissioner Jeremy Mansfield, a member of the Constitutional Republicans.
Who gets to be on the library board?
Before Constitutional Republicans won a majority on the county commission, people who wanted to be on the board would submit an application, according to Megan Lange, a former Sumner County library system employee.
“You would send a resume and a letter of intent or interest, and there would be a subcommittee of the library board who would meet, go over these,” Lange said.
Then, the board would present their recommendations to the county commission for approval.
But in the fall of 2022, Mansfield disregarded the library board’s slate of candidates and presented a panel of his own appointees.
“So I appreciate the library board coming in and having your nominees. But the library board is an operation of the county commission. It’s funded by the county commission,” Mansfield said during a meeting of the committee on committees. “And I think it definitely needs a fresh set of outset eyes, in my opinion.”
Since then, turnover on the library board has been high. The county website states the board should have 11 members, each serving three-year terms. But as of publication, nearly half the seats are empty. And only one member, Jackie Wilber, is left from the time before Constitutional Republicans won a majority of seats on the county commission.
Wilber still serves as chair, but vice-chair Joanna Daniels, one of Mansfield’s appointees, is a powerful force on the board.
Daniels, who did not respond to multiple interview requests for this story, has advocated for book bans in public schools. In October 2022, she asked the school board to remove “A Place Inside of Me,” a picture books about a young Black child navigating emotions after a police shooting, from shelves.
In her public comment, Daniels said the school library is “not for helping kids deal with emotions.”
Daniels also organizes a group called Safeguard Our Schools, which advocates against social-emotional learning and critical race theory. She told the Tennessee Star that while she does not have school-age children, she feels a responsibility as a taxpayer to ensure her money isn’t being used to pay for “indoctrination.”
Changes to library policy
Since joining the Sumner County Library Board, Daniels has acted to restrict materials in public libraries too.
Late last year, she voted to pass a policy that bans minors from accessing materials that contain nudity and “sex acts.”
The policy itself was written in graphic detail, prompting board member Beverly Hyde, wife of the county commission chair and another Mansfield appointee, to resign.
While some community members commended the effort to shield children from mature content, others, like Hilary Lounder, were vehemently opposed. Lounder said the policy was too broad and could impact things like romance novels, as well as “resource materials for art, biology, anatomy and other subjects that are most definitely not pornographic.”
Rick Grimm of Portland took issue with a portion of the policy that says materials can’t be “in any section of the library that minors have access to.”
“What the heck does that mean? Does that mean the rest of the library?” Grimm asked. “That’s ridiculous.”
The policy that passed didn’t include specific instructions on how to restrict those materials, so it’s unclear how exactly libraries are expected to stay in line.
These rules and the people crafting them are contributing to a culture of fear in the county, according to Lange, the former library system employee.
“I’m scared. I’m scared for my friends,” Lange said. “Our school board meetings are very contentious. Our county commission meetings can be very contentious. And at one point, I feel as though people could sit down and have conversations about things. But we’re at a point now where there are no more — there aren’t conversations.”
A screen capture shows a recent Facebook post from Sumner County Constitutional Republicans, eschewing Republicans who work across the aisle.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM