WHEN SHE OFFERED a toast at April’s Time 100 Gala in New York City, Tracie D. Hall, selected for Time magazine’s list of influential people, drew attention to librarians who have faced bomb threats, firings, and even jail time for resisting a growing effort to ban books. Hall, the first Black woman to head the Chicago-based American Library Association, received a standing ovation for her passionate declaration: “Free people read freely.”
Hall, 55, recently stepped down after nearly four years at the ALA. The timing was right, she says: She had helped close the organization’s budget gap, led it through
