Three book events at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta were abruptly canceled late this week, raising questions about whether leadership changes at the National Archives and Records Administration were affecting programming at the 13 presidential libraries it oversees.
The events, which featured authors of books on climate change, homelessness and the civil rights movement, had been scheduled months earlier. But this week, the authors were told they would have to move to other venues and the events were removed from the library’s website.
Among the affected authors was Elaine Weiss, whose new book, “Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement,” tells the story of the Highlander Folk School. In the 1950s, it began organizing “citizenship schools” where Black southerners were trained to pass the Jim Crow-era literacy tests designed to prevent them from voting.
In an interview, Ms. Weiss said the event had been arranged in November. But on Thursday afternoon, she said, her publicist at Simon & Schuster informed her that she had been told it could not go forward because the library, which was facing staff cuts, now needs approval from Washington for all programming. (Simon & Schuster declined to comment.)
Ms. Weiss said that she did not know whether the event had been called off because of the subject of her book. But she called the sudden cancellation “chilling.”
“The idea that a program about a book about democracy has to be approved by someone in Washington was and should be for everyone very scary,” she said. “The book is about voting rights, and about using education as a liberating tool.”