In the early 1960s, discarding old worn-out Bibles could get you labeled a communist. During the height of the Cold War, a school superintendent in Darby, Montana came under attack by members of the local John Birch Society because he had the audacity to throw out the school district’s Bibles. Even though he had purchased replacements, the Birchers viewed his actions as just another example of the creeping communism that was taking over the state. Once the superintendent’s critics had turned the decision to dispose of the damaged books into an attack on Christianity, there was little he could do to prove his loyalty to Americanism—or that he was not promoting a Communist takeover of his school district.
John Birch Society and Parent Teacher Associations
Robert Welch, a retired candy manufacturer, founded the John Birch Society in 1958. Its members saw communism everywhere they looked—particularly as a danger operating within American institutions. They understood that schools offered a powerful setting for their influence: as schools taught children what they should know about the nation and provided them instruction on which leaders and groups they should trust.
Concerned about communistic influences creeping into every aspect of American society, Welch “urged his followers to take over Parent-Teacher Associations [PTAs] on the theory that local offices would be easier to attain than statewide seats.” In a 1960 bulletin (quoted by journalist Gene Blake in the Los Angeles Times in March 1961), Welch encouraged his followers to “go to work to take [the PTAs] over.”
PTAs offered the Birch Society a platform for establishing claims that Birch members represented families concerned about their children’s education and futures. Welch understood that local PTAs could be used as venues to promote Bircher priorities.
Using Schools to Fight Anti-Americanism
The events surrounding the superintendent’s decision to destroy some old Bibles in that small community in western Montana illustrate how the John Birch Society used PTAs as a tool to fight communism. According to political historian Matthew Dallek, the John Birch Society used schools as a litmus test for patriotism. From his book Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right:
The Darby School District in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana showed what was possible when a handful of local members took an idea from the society and put it into practice. When the district’s superintendent decided to replace Bibles that were deemed to be in bad condition, a local minister advised that it would be okay to burn them. After approximately two dozen Birchers learned of the bonfire, their outrage sparked a multiyear crusade to remake the school district. A principal grew so concerned that Birchers were “using the local PTA as a springboard to infiltrate” Darby’s schools that he asked Montana’s Democratic Senator, Mike Mansfield, to send the principal any information Mansfield had on the operation. The Senator’s office reported that a local Birch chapter sought to establish review committees to study the school’s humanities textbooks for evidence of subversive teaching and expurgate what it saw as socialist propaganda from the school library. The school board voted down these Birch proposals, but the chapter members largely succeeded in their scorched-earth campaign of aggression and intimidation. They made menacing phone calls to the superintendent, trashed his home, and stalked him, and eventually he resigned. According to historian Kristian Gates, within a few years, the Darby School District lost sixteen of its twenty-three teachers, victims of the Birchers’ tear-it-all-down assault.
The Bircher take over of the Darby PTA had profound academic consequences. A teacher defending a reading—regardless of the purpose of that reading—might be required to defend her patriotism. A school administrator explaining a curriculum could find that an entire body of professional knowledge itself had been labeled suspect.
The John Birch playbook—as evidenced in the Darby indictment—purposefully narrowed the meaning of community. If one group’s political and religious commitments became the test for American loyalty and patriotism, then individuals who disagreed could be labeled as threats who should be cast out of their professional positions or even society itself.
A Familiar Struggle in a Different Era
With the guise of protecting kids from indoctrination by critical race theorists (CRT) and anti-American liberals, conservatives across the country are going after diversity, equity, and inclusion programs—including teaching about race and racism as well as gender identity and sexual orientation. Take the Rockwood School District in suburban St. Louis, for example. Starting during the 2020-2021 school year, the district has felt the brunt of a conservative backlash against what some folks have viewed as a CRT takeover of the curriculum.
“I send my kids to school for an education,” Adam Whittington told the Rockwood School Board during a hearing on May 6, 2021. “I don’t send them to get a moral lecture. A political lecture… an evil ideology.”
Like many districts under conservative scrutiny about their curriculum, the Rockwood situation got going as a revolt against public health measures and mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The uproar in Rockwood started with a debate over virtual learning during the pandemic and has moved to a focus on the district’s curriculum and reading lists. Protests became commonplace at School Board meetings, and fiery debates erupted among parents on social media.
These conservative attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in schools have prompted a upwelling of conservative challenges to open boards of education seats. And this is where the group Moms for Liberty comes into play.
Moms for Liberty has become the standard bearer for the conservative backlash against schools—leading culture war battles by hyping up hysteria about CRT and pushing a conservative takeover of local school boards.
Ali Swenson of the Associated Press described the group this way:
To its members, it’s a grassroots army of “joyful warriors” who “don’t co-parent with the government.”
To anti-hate researchers, it’s a well-connected extremist group that attacks inclusion in schools.
Moms for Liberty has been so successful at dismantling DEI-focused curriculum, pushing DEI leaders out of their jobs, disrupting school board meetings, and getting their supporters elected that the 2024 Republican candidates for president are lining up for the Moms for Liberty stamp of approval. They’re all clamoring for keynote speaker spots at the upcoming Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors Summit in Philadelphia at the end of June.
Here’s Ali Swenson again:
The high interest in the event underscores how fights surrounding gender and race have become core issues for Republican voters. It also spotlights Republicans’ eagerness to embrace a group that has drawn backlash for spreading anti-LGBTQ+ ideas and stripping libraries and classrooms of diverse materials.
And, of course, the 2024 Republican field of candidates are vying for a Moms for Liberty endorsement at the same time:
[The group] has expanded its activism in local school districts to target books it says are inappropriate or “anti-American,” ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, require teachers to disclose students’ pronouns to parents, and remove diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from schools.
Like their forbearers in the John Birch Society, members of the Moms for Liberty group have identified PTA organizations and local school boards as hotbeds for political activism.
Why This History Still Matters
The John Birch Society understood that political power could be cultivated in institutions close to home. And no other institution reaches as many people as schools. A PTA or school board meeting offered access and national ambitions could advance through seemingly local disputes.
This history also helps us distinguish between legitimate disagreement and intimidation. Families have real reasons to question curricula and school leadership. Public education depends on civic participation. But that participation loses its democratic purpose when accusations substitute for evidence or when harassment makes it difficult for educators to do their jobs and for parents to remain involved.
More to come soon.