A story is unfolding in the small town of Metropolis, Illinois that needs to receive more attention. The local media has been covering a controversy relating to the the Metropolis Public Library, but they seem to be getting only bits and pieces of what is going on. In my opinion, the full story is much more disturbing than what the media reported.
I lived in Metropolis most of my childhood, On June 9, 1972, as I was graduating from the local high school, the Illinois House of Representatives officially proclaimed that Metropolis was the Hometown of Superman. The following year the "Amazing World of Superman" museum opened in town, and I was a tour guide during my college break. Metropolis had plans then to build a thousand-acre, $50 million Superman theme park, with a 200-foot-tall statue. I moved back for a few years and worked there after college. Then I moved a short distance away to western Kentucky and made many trips back as my parents aged. Since they both passed away, I don’t go there as often, but still have many connections there. The population was 7,900 in 1964 when I arrived, and the 2020 census says it is now 5,900. It’s known for a Harrah’s Casino and the Thrive cannabis store. One major employer, the coal-fired EEI power plant in nearby Joppa, where my dad worked, closed in 2022. And a Superman Celebration every year, in early June. This is evidently a month feared by the members of Eastland Life Church, as you will read about below. Yes, it’s all about “the gay.”
When I heard there was a religious group making demands at the January 2024 meeting of the Metropolis Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting, and that there was talk of censorship and finding ways to completely avoid using any public state money—in effect moving towards privatization—I wanted to be involved. I read what seemed to be a somewhat unhinged, hyperbolic letter to the editor from the pastor of this religious group in the Metropolis Planet, which you can read here:
Brian L. Anderson Pastor Eastand Life Church LTE
Since then, here is what I have learned seems to be going on.
There is a church in town called Eastland Life Church and Brian L. Anderson is the pastor. The current mayor of Metropolis, Don Canada, is a member of the church. He was elected in 2021. He has been appointing other members of this church to many boards in town. Local anonymous watchdog, Eyes on Eastland, reportedly is compiling a list and reportedly says there are at least 2 Eastland Life Church members on every mayor-appointed board. From what I was told, the commissioners do have to approve those appointments.
Rosemary Baxter was serving as Director of the Metropolis Public Library for the past 2 plus years, and she has close associations with Eastland Life Church. She started an “after school” program at the library, and steadily added children to it. They recite prayers as part of this program, and she apparently believed that if the parent signed a waiver giving permission for that, there was no problem. And she has stated in public interviews (more on that later) that “all the parents signed”. Of course if I were a parent and knew a program was going to involve a specific version of the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the session I would likely not want my child to attend and then be the one kid sitting there not praying. So I wouldn’t be looking to use that program, making it not inclusive for all children. That is just one reason that there are constitutionally protected guidelines on prayer in public programs.
Ms. Baxter was also steadily removing upwards of 15,000 books from the library shelves to ostensibly “make room”—although I’m not clear how that worked since these “removed” books are then on shelves taking up space and labeled “for sale”. She claims she used a process relating to whether a book had been checked out in a certain number of years, but members of the Library Board have stated that she was not being straightforward with them and giving them the numbers and lists of books being removed or purchased to update the library, despite repeated requests.
Then, IL Governor Pritzker signed the new law prohibiting the banning of books in 2023. Libraries were required to sign onto the Library Bill of Rights. According to what I’ve learned and from news reports such as this Jan 25 Library Board of Trustees Meeting , the library already had adopted this Bill of Rights for a number of years, but only needed to amend it. According to WPSD6 Censorship Concerns, Pastor Comments Spark Library Protest :
During the library’s Jan. 16 meeting, the board voted to adopt the “Intellectual Freedom and Privacy” amendment. The amendment, which the ALA added after 2012, states people can access information “from diverse viewpoints and formats without restrictions or censorship.” If the board did not approve the amendment - or an alternative - the library's state funding could have been revoked under HB 2789
A large crowd showed up unexpectedly at this Jan 25 Library Board Meeting, consisting of many members of the local Ministerial Alliance along with Eastland Life Church members. Apparently there had been an some attempt within the local Ministerial Alliance to raise fears of Drag Queen Story Hour being brought to Metropolis, as well as discussing ways to avoid using state funding. Rosemary Baxter’s husband is a member of the Ministerial Alliance. It is not clear if she ever attended and provided information that sparked their fears, or if it was done through her spouse, or someone else. A member of the Massac County Democrats, Randy Cottom, was quoted in the WPSD6 coverage (same link as above)
“She (Board President Rhonda James) spent about an hour telling us everything that’s happening here at the library,” Cottom claimed. “The main thing that she was worried about is that the members of this church came to the last board meeting and wanted to get their way on a vote. And they stood up, the men especially, and crossed their arms and just stared at her, at the board, trying to intimidate them into voting their way,” Cottom said. James could not be reached for comment regarding these claims on Wednesday.
According to the WPSD6 story (link above) Massac County Ministerial Alliance president Jim Duncan, pastor of Zion Evangelical Church, read a statement addressing the passage of House Bill 2789, which can be read in its entirety at the link (wpsd6 Censorship/Ministerial Alliance quote).
That new law prohibiting the banning of books and requiring adoption of the Library Bill of Rights was apparently too much for the congregation at Eastland Life Church. Pastor Brian Anderson wrote his inflammatory Letter to the Editor to the Metropolis Planet that was mentioned at the top of this diary. He began making frequent public claims that signing onto the amended Library Bill of Rights would lead to Drag Queen Story Hour coming to the library, as well as “explicitly sexual books” being available to young children. As Anderson put it in one of his sermons (available on the church page on Facebook, I transcribed word-for-word).
and the idea of it is, that, you know, ‘here in Metropolis we don’t need to ban books.’ You know what that means? That means any type of wicked stuff down from Sodom and Springfield they want!
The anti-LGBTQ agenda of this church is further clarified in another part of his sermon.
But if we do nothing, we’re gonna look up here in June, which is their particular month, and we're going to see things in our local library that we don't like.”
Personally, I imagine they are likely to see a lot of comic-book themed displays and programs in June, since the Superman Celebration kicks off the month in Metropolis.
In other parts of these sermons he escalates into inflammatory rhetoric and even begins introducing talk of violence. He refers to opposition to his library agenda as “the Enemy” and making inflammatory statements such as “The Enemy hates us! The Enemy wants to kill us!” And even worse, “These children that you see here. . .the Enemy hates them, and the Enemy wants to kill them!” He goes on to equate the library trustees with “this Enemy” that is “ even attacking our public library.” And another time “Stand firm with me at the wall and be strong because this could get violent.” The wall reference refers to his running sermon thread about Nehemiah returning to repair the wall of Jerusalem as Pastor Anderson calls them to attend Library Board meetings to build a figurative protective wall for Metropolis. Ironically, the sermon tells the story of Nehemiah fighting for the poor and those that would exploit them economically. Instead, Pastor Anderson wants to use that story to fight a “nationally recognizable, trans-addicted direction toward pushing content onto children that not long ago would have got you arrested.” (link below to article in The Blaze).
The President of the Library Board of Trustees, Rhonda James, was asked by the local Democratic Executive Committee to come and answer questions about what was going on after the January board meeting. Other concerned community members attended, not just the committee. The next day, Brian Anderson’s op-ed was published in the local paper. They and others then organized a peaceful rally to support keeping the library public and opposing censorship and banning of books. I am co-leader of Four Rivers Indivisible, a non-partisan progressive political activist organization focused on democracy and social justice/civil liberties, and the group has quite a few members from Metropolis and Massac County. So we coordinated and assisted by posting a private FB event within the group and a public event on Mobilize. This was held outside the library just before the February 20th regular board meeting. I attended, along with about 20 others.
After the rally we attended the Library Board of Trustees meeting, which was covered by local news outlets. A new board member, Carl Johnson, who reportedly attends Rosemary Baxter’s church where her spouse is pastor, had just been appointed to fill a vacancy . There is now what seems to be a split in the orientation of the Board with a minority being aligned with Eastland Life Church, although the majority, including the President of the Board, is still committed to the “public” in public library. The Library Board President, Rhonda James, a local business owner, also did an interview with the Metropolis station, WMOK in which she explained her history with the board and that they had been shown a film at the start of her tenure advising against micromanaging, and she felt she and some others had gone too far the other direction and just had not monitored what was going on closely enough after Ms. Baxter was hired. They now plan to have more committees to oversee various aspects of library functioning.
At that meeting of the Library Board of Trustees, many people spoke up during public comments, and the main issue the Board dealt with was being more clear with the director, Ms. Baxter, that she had to comply with their request to provide them with data on books being culled and books being ordered. A vote was taken to require her to submit to a clear plan to address that issue. Something interesting happened during that vote, which you can see on film here, at a site that is anonymously detailing some of what has been happening.
Eyes on Eastland—vote
As you can see, the new board member was waiting for signals from Ms. Baxter as to how she wanted him to vote.
Ms. Baxter was also told that they would be developing an action plan to be sure she was acting in compliance with the Library Bill of Rights, which would be presented to her for agreement at the next month’s meeting.
But then—Ms. Baxter and Pastor Anderson decided to participate in an interview with one Greg Dunker at WKYX radio in Paducah. This is a well-known right-wing program, and I had my own experience with how he operates back in 2010 during the ACA debates over a biased forum he and the station advertised as “non-partisan”.
During that interview, Ms. Baxter made it clear that she misled the board when she said she hadn’t applied for a state grant that would have provided roof repair funds because it was too lengthy and she just didn’t have time. She stated in her radio interview:
I know the regulations. I know the guidelines. To me it is just a death trap. It was a snare to rip you up and hang you upside down, so they have control.
Eyes on Eastland--Rosemary Baxter's own words
The full interview here: Greg Dunker Interview WKYX
Ms. Baxter also stated her pride in never applying for any state funding during her tenure, and her skill at making improvements using other sources of funding.
Greg Dunker also asked her about questionable books that parents had objected to. She said that she had parents come in sometimes upset. Why? Because they checked out a children’s book without knowing what it was about and when they got to the end there was a “surprise” ending—that involved the child character having two mommies or two daddies. That was it. Not explicit sex, not pornography. Nothing. Just parents who hadn’t taken the time to vet the books they checked out. I would think that if they’re going to object to things like that, they need to take responsibility for that themselves and not blame a library for simply having it available for families that want it. There was some discussion in the public comments section of the Library Board meeting, with responses from Rosemary Baxter, that any person can request any book and get it through inter-library loan. Which of course begs the point that most people-- and especially busy parents-- aren’t interested in waiting for a book and many times only learn of a book they’d like by viewing it in the library.
After this, the Library Board called a special meeting on February 28th, and again I attended, as did many Eastland Life Church members. The Library Board went into closed session after brief public comments. They then called Rosemary Baxter in. She refused to talk to the local NBC affiliate station, WPSD6, afterward—she just walked off as a reporter asked her for a comment, (and I observed that exchange) later describing that as “harassment” , which appeared to me to be nothing of the sort. However, she had no problem making public comments to Greg Dunker in another interview that she resigned because she could not comply with what they were asking her to do (abide by the Library Bill of Rights) and “knew where it was leading”.
As she came out from the closed meeting, we were very close to her in the very back of the room, and heard her say, “It was my choice. It was what I wanted.” She then stood right next to me, and as the board gathered to start the meeting again, she referenced a male board member, who is known to be a gay man, and said “He is Satan”. I startled, and she noticed, and glanced down at me and said “I said that loud enough because I wanted to make sure you heard me. “
The board then moved to terminate her contract, voting 5-3 for termination. Many Eastland Life Church members then said things in our direction like, “Well, you all got what you wanted, it’s just going to hurt the kids.”
Evidently during the closed meeting, Ms. Baxter asked what would happen to the after-school program, and was told by the member she later called “Satan” that it was no longer her concern. She related this in a second radio interview with Greg Dunker. The next day, the two staff members responsible for the children’s program resigned, and the library posted on FB that the program would close for a week while they got new staff. So much for caring about the children—they could have given two weeks notice. But then, Rosemary Baxter actually used the Library Facebook account to post that she had arranged for Eastland Life Church to take any children that wanted to come that day and going forward, and she had even arranged with the local public school for bus transportation. Some evidently took the offer. Note that Eastland Life Church is also running a small homeschool co-op program for about 22 children.
Here is the local TV news story on the termination meeting, and they have some other segments on this issue also Metropolis Public Library board votes to oust director amid censorship controversy
Things have been running smoothly for the library since then, if not for the board members who voted to terminate Baxter—President Rhonda James has been a particular target, including losing some business. A good interim director who filled that role in the past was hired, two volunteer public school teachers volunteered for the after-school program until the end of the school year, with partial refunds to any families that have left. The after-school program was closed for only three days before it was back up and running.
But this is far from over. The term for Library Board President Rhonda James ends this summer—in June. The mayor has been steadily appointing only Eastland Life affiliated or sympathetic evangelicals to boards—not just at the library. And now they have gotten a screed published in The Blaze as an opinion piece. The inflammatory rhetoric is very concerning, and I don’t know about you, but if they are saying voting isn’t enough for them, I’d like to know what that means they are planning to do. It’s behind a paywall but I can quote a bit here without violating fair use, I think.
A librarian’s faithful service is silenced by a secularist takeover
Meanwhile, back at the library, multiple staff members have quit in solidarity with Baxter, 56, who is still trying to figure out how exactly the conservative community she was born and raised in could now somehow be bullied into submission by an unelected board full of misfits, who have abused the system to stay in their roles beyond what the law specifies.
“Our mayor is looking into all this,” said Baxter. “The library board said I wasn’t following the library bill of rights, which opened the door in April of last year to all the talk of protecting ‘banned books’ and drag queen story hour. One of the library board members said she wanted her children to be exposed to all of that. What do you even say to that?”
For starters, you call it evil.
There is nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide. Not even in small-town America.
We will no longer be permitted to watch Fox News all day and then dutifully vote straight-ticket Republican to passively “save America once again.” If this story proves anything, it is that evil is now so systemic, and our national and most of our state capitols are now so far gone, that the Enemy is so cocky he’s got time and energy to spend corrupting humble Metropolis, Illinois.
He is coming. He is coming for you. Your country. Your county. Your clan.
Are you ready? You will soon find out. Until then, enjoy the designer coffee and moist Danish at your suburban megaplex masquerading as a church this weekend. Or just sleep in again this Sunday.
The emerging coalition of local citizens opposed to the agenda of the Eastland Life Church and their other evangelical allies includes Christians, Democrats, Independents, and even some supporters of Donald Trump. As one person who describes themself as “very Christian” and “I’m a Trumper” communicated in a discussion forum I participate in, “This thing with Eastland and the city has nothing to do with politics - this is about a cult trying to take over a town - and brainwash all of us like we're their congregation - and I mean that in the kindest Christian way - but it is so true - we've all heard about the battle between good and evil and that's what this is - - and they're saying we're the evil ones - but I haven't heard any of the towns people say "Stand firm with me at the wall and be strong because this could get violent" but that's sure what this so called 'leader' has said and we have it on a recording coming out of his own mouth”.
I would love suggestions on how to get some national media attention on this story, because in an election year and this political climate, I think it represents so much of what is happening all over the country.
Even in a “blue state”, in the Hometown of Superman.
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UPDATE 7:00 PM FRIDAY MARCH 22nd--BOARD MEMBERS FIRED Three of the current board members including President Rhonda James have confirmed that their terms were terminated by Mayor Canada late today. Here is a statement from Kelley Sullivan from FB:
As of today, Friday, March 22nd, I am no longer a member of the Metropolis Public Library Board of Trustees. Mayor Canada is replacing three board members, including me, as soon as possible.
I've been privileged to serve on this board since the fall of 2019. I hope that my degree in Library Science and my many years in the library field helped in some small way. The library is one of the best things this town has going for it. I don't want to see it go downhill or, worse yet, close.
Please continue to support Colby Kennedy as interim director. He has a hard working staff there and the programming is wonderful. Keep an eye on what's going on by attending board meetings and asking questions. Most of all, continue reading!!Thanks to all who've supported the board and the library, especially as of late. Keep it up. You are needed!! Kelley Sullivan
This story now moves to the next chapter: Red, White, and Kryptonite Part 2: The action at Metropolis Public Library moves to City Hall
Superman’s battle is ON! Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
