By: Sydney Franklin
Rape. Incest. Profanity. Violence. Racial and sexual content. Didn’t think I was going to start out the article on that note, did you? Well, these words all fit the description 1988 Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved by Toni Morrison.
Though written over 120 years ago, the book was banned from AP English classrooms in 2007 at Eastern High School — just a five-minute drive from my high school campus of Christian Academy in Louisville, Ky. According to the National Coalition Against Censorship, students were told to stop reading the novel within 30 pages from the end — in total there are 275 pages.
As a sophomore at a private Christian institution, I would have been reading classics like C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and maybe The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I surely do not remember Beloved as part of my curriculum and, I’m beginning to think this was no coincidence…
Milligan’s own P.H. Welshimer Library recently celebrated Banned Books Week, a near 20-year tradition among public and private libraries across the nation. Librarians display books that have been censored or banned in recent years by covering the title and replacing it with when, where and why it was rejected.
Last week, I picked up the novel described above based on the location of its censorship. Who knew that the censorship occurred at a public high school where three of my closest friends attended?
P.H. Welshimer User Services Librarian Jeff Harbin said the purpose of the showcase was to “fight censorship and protect intellectual freedom.”
“Even classics in recent years — those that are considered to be almost untouchable — people still have a problem with them,” he said. “We can’t go about censoring everything because those books have value and serve a purpose.”
Set in post-Civil War Ohio, Beloved tells of an escaped slave named Sethe who fled from Kentucky with her children. Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, her owner pursued his right to chase her across the border and reclaim her. To protect her children from this fate, she killed her eldest daughter. Years later, in her home in Cincinnati, Sethe is haunted by a ghost, called Beloved, believed to be her daughter.
Literary staples, as some may call them, are still challenged to this day. Beloved was number 10 out of 464 challenges in 2012 as reported by the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom. Among it were Captain Underpants (a series that frequents the list), Fifty Shades of Grey, The Kite Runner, and The Glass Castle. In 2011, the Hunger Games was challenged alongside To Kill a Mockingbird.
A “challenge” is a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school to request that a piece of literature be removed. The ALA states that for every reported challenge, four or five remain unreported.
“[Banned Books Week] is here to fight that censorship and protect intellectual freedom,” said Harbin, who was pleased with the number of students who were curious about Welshimer’s banned books display.
Banned Books Week happens during the last week of September. For a comprehensive list of books that have been banned or challenged over the years, visit http://www.ala.org. You might be surprised by what you find.
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