The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

One of the most banned books of all time going back over a 130 years, let's learn about a little boy's life after faking his own murder and meeting up with a slave.


Banned

1885 - Massachusetts - Banned in Concord as "trash and suitable only for the slums."

1905 - New York - Excluded from the Brooklyn Public Library's children's colleciton because "Huck not only itched but scratched, and that he said sweat when he should have said perspiration."

1930 - Confiscated at the USSR border

1957 - New York - Dropped from New York City list of books recommended for senior and junior high schools partly for use of racial language

1969 - Florida - Removed from Miami-Dade Junior College required reading because it "creates an emotional block for black students that inhibits learning."

1976 - Illinois - Challenged for racism at the New Trier High School at Winnetka

1981 - Pennsylvania - Challenged for racism at the Tamament Junior High in Warrington

1982

Iowa - Challenged for racism in Davenport Public Schools

Texas - Challenged for racism at the Sprint Independent School District in Houston

Virginia - Challenged for racism at the Mark Twain Intermediate School in Fairfax County

1983 - Pennsylvania - Challenged for racism in State College Area School District

1984 - Illinois - Challenged for racism in Springfield

1988

Illinois - Removed from required reading in teh Rockford public schools for racial language

Louisiana - REmoved from required reading and school libraries in Caddo Parish for racism

Michigan - Challenged at the Berrien Springs High School

1989 - Tennessee - Challenged at the Sevier Country High School in Sevierville for racial language and dialect

1990

Pennsylvania - Challenged at Erie High School for racism

Texas - Challenged in Plano Independent School District for racism

1991

Arizona - Challenged in the Mesa Unified School District because of racial language and damages self-esteem of black youth

Louisiana - Removed from required reading at Terrebonne Parish Schools in Houma for racial language

Michigan - Temporarily pulled from Portage classrooms after some black parents complained their children were uncomfortable

1992

California - Challenged at Modesto High as required language for racist language

North Carolina - Challenged at the Kinston Middle School as unsuitable for age group due to racist language

1993 - Pennsylvania - Challenged at Carlisle schools for racial language

1994

Georgia - Challenged at Taylor County High School in Butler for racial language, bad grammar, and does not reject slavery. Raised a grade level.

Texas - Challenged but retained on high school level by the Lewisville school board

1995

California - Removed from required reading lists in East San Jose high school after objections from black parents over racial language that erodes their children's self esteem and affects the children's performance

Connecticut - Removed from eighth grade curriculum at New Haven middle school complained it undermined the self-esteem of black youth.

Washington, D.C. - Removed from curriculum of the North Cathedral School for content and language

Wisconsin - Challenged in Kenosha Unified School after a complaint was filed with the local NAACP of offensive to black students

1996

Arizona - Challenged as required reading in an honors English class at the McClintock High School in Tempe by a teacher on behalf of their daughter and other black students. In May 1996, a class action lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, alleging the district deprived minority students of educational opportunities by requiring racially offensive literature as part of class assignments. In January 1997, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit stating he realized that "language in the novel was offensive and hurtful to the plaintiff," but that the suit failed to prove the district violated the student's civil rights or that the works were assigned with discriminatory intent. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco ruled that requiring public school students to read literary works that some find racially offensive is not discrimination prohibited by the equal protection clause or Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The ruling came in the case Monteiro v. Tempe Union High School District

Pennsylvania - removed from required reading list at the Upper Dublin schools because of its racial language

Texas - Banned from the Lindale Advanced Placement English reading list for "conflicting with the values of the community."

Washington - Challenged for being on the approved reading list in the Federal Way schools because it "promotes hate and racism"

1997

Indiana - Challenged at the Columbus North High School because the books is "degrading, insensitive, and oppressive"

New Jersey - Removed from Cherry Hill school classrooms after concerns were raised about racial language and depiction of African American characters. Reinstated later that year after the school board approved a new curriculum with a context of racial relations along with the works of Frederick Douglass, Maya Angelou, and Langston Hughes

Ohio - Challenged in South Euclid-Lyndhurst City Schools after a school complained that some classmates laughed at the racial language

Virginia - Challenged but retained at McLean High School in Fairfax despite a parent's complaint that the book offends African Americans

1998

Georgia - Challenged in the Dalton County schools for offensive language; Challenged in the Whitfield County for offensive language

Pennsylvania - The Pennsylvania NAACP called for the book's removal from required school reading lists across the state for racial language

1999 - Alaska - Recommended for removal because of racial language from the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District

2000 - Oklahoma - Challenged but retained at Enid schools after previously being removed in 1977

2001 - Illinois - Challenged in the Kankakee School District for racial language

2002 - Oregon - Challenged in the Portland schools by a black student who said he was offended by the racial language

2003 - Illinois - Challenged in teh Normal Community High School as being degrading

2004 - Washington - REmoved from reading lists in Renton high schools after a black student said the book degraded her and her culture. The novel was not required reading but was on approved book's list

2006 - Arizona - Challenged as required reading at Cactus High in Peoria. The student and mother threatened to file a civil-rights complaint of alleged racial treatment, segregation of the student, and the use of racial language in the classroom

2007

Michigan - Removed from Taylor school classes after complaints of racial language

Minnesota - Challenged but retained at Lakeville High School and the St. Louis Park High School in Minneapolis as required reading although staff was given training and alternate reading choices were made

Texas - Challenged at Richland High School in NOrth Richland Hills for racial language

2008 - Connecticut - Retained in Manchester School District with the requirement that teachers attend seminars about race before teaching the book

2016 - Virginia - The superintendent of Accomack County Public Schools confirmed the district had removed Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” after a parent voiced her concerns during a Nov. 15 school board meeting, reported WAVY-TV.

2018 - Minnesota - Duluth Public Schools removed the book from the curriculum for use of the "n" word.


Sources

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. 2014.

Philips, Kristine. "A school district drops ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘Huckleberry Finn’ over use of the n-word." Washington Post. Retrieved on 2018 February 9 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/02/07/a-school-district-drops-to-kill-a-mockingbird-and-huckleberry-finn-over-use-of-the-n-word/?utm_term=.f2df4a0b9d2d



"Dances and Dames"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/