Knox County Schools Adds Pulitzer Prize-Winning 'Roots' to List of Banned Books
The removal adds to a districtwide ban that has reached 119 titles as Tennessee schools enforce new material restrictions.
- On Thursday, May 14, Knox County Schools removed Alex Haley's 1976 novel "Roots: The Saga of an American Family" from library shelves, citing the Age-Appropriate Materials Act as legal justification.
- District spokesperson Carly Harrington explained the removal follows a review of chapter 84, which the committee determined met Tennessee's legal threshold for "sadomasochistic abuse."
- Published in 1976, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is now one of 124 titles banned by KCS, despite its instrumental role in helping Americans understand the transatlantic slave trade's atrocities.
- Annastasia Williams, director of The Bottom bookstore, questioned the banning process, arguing there is "no transparency on how these decisions are made and how the public can comment or push back on such censorship."
- Tennessee has seen book banning rise to the "third-highest" rate among U.S. states since the law's passage, while the American Library Association reports 92 percent of book challenges nationally originate from pressure groups or politicians.
12 Articles
12 Articles
Novel with Mid-South ties, banned from some East Tennessee school libraries
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A landmark novel with deep ties to the Mid-South is now banned from some school libraries in East Tennessee. “Roots,” written in 1976 by Alex Haley, traces the author’s ancestry from Africa through slavery in the United States. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was recently added to a banned books list in the [...]
Single passage gets Pulitzer-winning book about slavery banned in deep red state
A school district in a deeply red state decided to ban an iconic Pulitzer-winning novel about slavery because of a single passage. Knox County Schools in Tennessee banned the 1976 novel "Roots: The Saga of an American Family," written by Alex Haley, who spent his early years and later life in the state, according to reports. The novel, set in the South, follows the journey of Africans who were enslaved and brought to the U.S. and their later gen…
Knox County Schools bans historical novel 'Roots' by Alex Haley
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