Last weekend, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was presented the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, an honor presented by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to acknowledge individuals or groups who have furthered the cause of intellectual freedom, particularly as it impacts libraries and information centers and the dissemination of ideas. The award was presented last Saturday at a presentation during the American Library Association midwinter conference, and accepted by CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein. His acceptance remarks highlight the rise of comics from being hobbled by junk science in the 1950s to their near universal embrace by contemporary culture, and are presented in full after the jump.
CBLDF Board Member Neil Gaiman & Executive Director Charles Brownstein with the Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. Photo by Cat Mihos.
