On Tuesday, September 9, 2025, join Teaching for Change and Allegory, located inside the Eaton DC, to introduce the Banned In D.C. menu. The menu features Teaching for Change as the story continues to follow a fictionalized Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to integrate into a school in Louisiana, whose experience is featured in Allegory’s mural by artist Erik Thor Sandberg. Imagined in the context of "Alice Through the Looking Glass," Ruby's journey continues 20 years after her historic integration, as she falls down a new rabbit hole and has to navigate a post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C., where her story and others like it face censorship.
The date was selected to commemorate the birthday that week of civil rights icon Ruby Bridges, who is the protagonist in the illustrated story menu. Relatedly, the week is also the anniversary of other significant dates in U.S. history that may be banned from the curriculum: the Attica Prison Uprising (1971); the establishment of The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (1915),and the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina (1739). We join friends of Teaching for Change and the greater D.C. metro area community for a happy hour event.
Teaching for Change is featured in the menu when Ruby is inspired to challenge book bans. A national non-profit organization based in D.C., Teaching for Change plays an active role in the campaign to defend the freedom to learn and hosts the popular Social Justice Books. Teaching for Change prioritizes place-based work with D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice and Teach the Beat, bringing go-go artists to D.C. schools.
Teaching for Change began collaborating with Eaton after it opened in 2018 and invited Teaching for Change to curate the book selection for the Eaton library and guest rooms.