John Amanchukwu speaks at a Turning Level USA match.Turning Level USA by the use of YouTube
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In a January 24 press liberate from the Division of Schooling, the Trump management declared that book-banning was once a “hoax.”
However ultimate month, President Donald Trump invited John Amanchukwu, the self-proclaimed “book-banning pastor,” to the White Space for a Black Historical past Month match. Since 2023, Amanchukwu, a early life pastor from North Carolina, has travelled to a minimum of 23 faculty board conferences in 18 states on a national book-banning excursion financed through Trump donors and allies, together with Turning Level USA (TPUSA).
In this excursion, Amanchukwu calls for that faculty districts take away books that don’t align along with his conservative Christian ideology—in most cases books written through or about LGBTQ other people. Amanchukwu is based closely on insults and threats throughout his faculty board speeches, maximizing each and every look’s doable for social media virality.
At a contemporary prevent in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Amanchukwu introduced into an ordinary rant in regards to the ebook It Feels Just right to Be Your self. Amanchukwu mentioned the ebook was once “a lie” as it said that gender id is fluid and intersex other people exist. As evidence that the ebook was once mendacity to kids, Amanchukwu cited Genesis 1:27.
Knowledgeable through the chair of the varsity board that he was once out of order as a result of his feedback didn’t pertain to pieces at the day’s schedule, Amanchukwu simply started talking louder, making an attempt to drown out the board contributors. Requested to go back to his seat, Amanchukwu was once undeterred. “We want to ban books that seek to pervert the hearts and minds of children,” he shouted. The shouting persevered for roughly 3 mins, till the board declared a recess.
In April 2023, Amanchukwu attended a gathering of the Wake County Board of Schooling in his house state of North Carolina with then-candidate for state superintendent Michele Morrow and different native activists. In his feedback (see video under), Amanchukwu mentioned that beside the point books had been being “purchased and delivered” to native colleges as a part of a plot through the “Democrat Party” that “castrates children, mutilates children, perverts children, grooms children, murders children, and indoctrinates children.” (The Wake County Board of Schooling is nonpartisan.)
At a July 18, 2023 assembly in Temecula, California, Amanchukwu described a textbook lesson about civil rights icon Harvey Milk as “filth.”
In August 2023, Amanchukwu formally introduced a national excursion of faculty forums in partnership with a “major organization,” TPUSA. In June 2024, he seemed on a podcast hosted through TPUSA Founder Charlie Kirk throughout which Amanchukwu published that TPUSA had chipped in “thousands and thousands” of greenbacks to strengthen his paintings. Amanchukwu additionally mentioned he won “hundreds of thousands” of greenbacks from Robert “Dr. Bob” Shillman.
Shillman is a businessman and right-wing donor who has prior to now funded anti-muslim activists together with Laura Loomer, Brigitte Gabriel, and Tommy Robinson. Shillman additionally hosted a fundraiser with JD Vance for the Trump marketing campaign in September 2024. Some specifics of the monetary association between Amanchukwu, TPUSA, and Shillman have no longer been disclosed. However, in response to TPUSA social media posts, apparently that Shillman’s donations to TPUSA are getting used to fund Amanchukwu’s faculty board excursion.
Amanchukwu has labored with TPUSA Religion, an offshoot of TPUSA, as a contributor since July 2022. Amanchukwu was once a featured speaker at The us Fest, TPUSA’s annual convention, in December 2024 and is ceaselessly featured on TPUSA’s social media accounts.
TPUSA and Amanchukwu’s agent didn’t reply to requests for remark.
In fall 2024, Amanchukwu changed into a visiting fellow on the Middle for Renewing The us, a company based through Russell Vought, a lead creator of Challenge 2025 who was once not too long ago showed as Trump’s Director of the Administrative center of Control and Funds. (The gang didn’t reply to questions on Amanchukwu’s paintings.)
At many faculty board conferences, Amanchukwu seems dressed in hoodies emblazoned along with his quotes from previous conferences. Those hoodies (see under) are that can be purchased on his site, iknowgodmerch.com, for $60. (On the time of e-newsletter, Amanchukwu’s merch retailer was once password safe.)
Amanchukwu has additionally written two books, which he promotes incessantly in podcast appearances. He launched a movie in October 2024 about his faculty board excursion, which can also be bought for $9.99. The movie, produced in partnership with TPUSA Religion, options different outstanding right-wing figures, together with billionaire and self-proclaimed historian David Barton.
When Amanchukwu introduced his faculty board excursion, he mentioned he would go back and forth to the “wokest and bluest and darkest cities in America.” As an alternative, his excursion has in large part stopped in pink or pink districts, together with Boise, Idaho; Washoe County, Nevada; Gwinnett County, Georgia; and Midland, Texas. On a minimum of two events when he visited faculty forums that most effective permit public feedback from other people living of their district, Amanchukwu has claimed to be the roommate of a neighborhood activist.
Amanchukwu’s faculty board speeches apply a regimen layout. He identifies a couple of books he feels don’t belong at school libraries. Those books ceaselessly function LGBTQ characters and vary from image books to extra mature young-adult novels. Amanchukwu reads a passage from probably the most extra mature books and admonishes faculty board contributors for permitting such “perverse” subject material of their libraries. Amanchukwu incessantly breaks assembly laws, which has led to him being escorted out of conferences through police on a number of events—and gives crowd pleasing content material for his social media accounts.
At a gathering of Florida’s Indian River County Faculty Board in August 2023, Amanchukwu was once escorted from the assembly through police as a result of he persevered studying from 13 Causes Why through Jay Asher after the board requested him to forestall. Amanchukwu and TPUSA have used photos of Amanchukwu being got rid of from this assembly to advertise his faculty board excursion and foster a story that Amanchukwu is being persecuted for his ideals.
At a college board assembly in New Jersey, Amanchukwu, who’s Black, was once requested to go away after the usage of the n-word, however refused to go away the speaker’s podium for a number of mins. He shouted to the varsity board that he would no longer go away as it was once his “Rosa Parks moment.” He additionally when compared himself to Rosa Parks on an episode of Kirk’s podcast.
In Mesa, Arizona, Amanchukwu known as faculty board contributors “racist bigots” for celebrating Black Historical past Month when not up to 5 p.c of the scholar frame is Black and for having a library ebook a few trans Black boy. Amanchukwu particularly known as out the board’s most effective Black member, announcing she must be “voted off first.”
On podcasts, Amachukwu’s language is much more inflammatory and insulting—ceaselessly directed at ladies and trans other people.
On an episode of Kirk’s podcast, Amanchukwu mocked a lady featured in a Deliberate Parenthood intercourse schooling video, announcing she appeared like a “two-liter bottle.” Amanchukwu mentioned the video would deter scholars from having intercourse as a result of they’d be disgusted through the girl’s look. “I mean the last thing you want to think about is sex looking at that woman…” he mentioned, “if it’s a woman.”
In July 2024, Amanchukwu uploaded a video about his discuss with to a faculty board assembly in Washoe County, Nevada. In it, he spent a number of mins attacking Debi Stears, the collections director for Washoe County libraries, and quoted a Bible verse implying it might be higher for her to be killed than to proceed offering books he deems beside the point for youngsters.
“Debi, Debi, Debi, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Amanchukwu mentioned. “Do you not know that the Bible tells us in Luke 17:2 ‘it is better for a man to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck, than for someone to do harm to a child’?”
In an episode of a conservative podcast on Rumble, a right-wing selection to YouTube, Amanchukwu mentioned that he would bodily assault a transgender athlete—possibly a minor—in the event that they had been to compete towards his younger daughter.
“I can only imagine myself being in the stands and seeing some hairy man walking out on the track or getting ready to jump in the pool to swim against my precious baby girl. Man, let me tell you something, it would be WWE Raw, because listen Brad, I’m just gonna be honest with you, you are not gonna disenfranchise and defraud my baby girl, alright. The way I love my daughter, no siree. I’m going on that track, I’m jumping in that pool, and we’re gonna fight it out. And by the time we’re done, no one’s gonna want to get in the pool because I have turned it upside down. I’m gonna turn green,” Amanchukwu mentioned. “I’m not saying that I’m trying to promote people to violence, but I am saying I’m calling people to speak up and use their voice.”
