The Harmful Effects of Banning African American Books

“The hand that holds the quill controls history.”  Charles L. Blockson (1933-2023 )

No doubt there is always something to stop, deny, steal, and ban black education, wealth, progress, and participation. Since arriving on American soil, disallowing enslaved Africans to read and write, ensured, for a limited time, the inability to record history, educate the family, and learn strategies to overcome servitude, build a strong community, and secure generational wealth.

Banned by the Puritans in the 1600s, Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan is considered the first book banned in the United States. Morton’s critical tell-all about Puritan customs sparked a backlash among those within and outside the Puritan community. In 1982, the Island Trees School District v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982), was brought before the United States Supreme Court. The focus of the suit was the right to receive information in a library setting under the First Amendment. The Court split on the First Amendment issue of local school boards removing library books from junior high and high schools. No single opinion of the justices commanded a majority of the Court nor announced any legally binding rule. (Mart, Susan Nevelow, The Right to Receive Information, 95 Law Libr. J. 175, 175 (2003).

Forty years later we face whipped-up and inaccurate controversies over critical race theory and teaching the correct version of American history in public schools. And in congruence with America’s conflicted handling of race and its use as a tool to garner votes, this has led to banning books written by and about people of color, thought leaders, and children’s authors. Why rewrite the color wheel of colonization when it was previously effective?

Since its release in 1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou is repeatedly challenged. Angelou, an American treasure, is one of the most banned African American writers. Caged Bird appeared third on the American Library Association (ALA) list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 and sixth on the ALA’s 2000–2009 list. A few books banned and or challenged by and about Black people also includes:

Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Zora Neale Hurston

Native Son (1940), Richard Wright

The Invisible Man (1952), Ralph Ellison

The Bluest Eye (1970), Toni Morrison

The People’s History of the United States (1980), Howard Zinn

The Color Purple (1982), Alice Walker

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), Rebecca Skloot

The New Jim Crow (2010), Michelle Alexander

Between the World and Me (2015), Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Hate U Give (2017), Angie Thomas

The 1619 Project (2019), Nikole Hannah-Jones

The New Kid (2019) and Class Act (2020), Jerry Craft

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You (2020), Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds

The ACLU Massachusetts shared in an online post that “the racist campaign of repression against Black authors has never really stopped—only ebbed from time to time. Today, however, this campaign has roared back into life with a relentless effort to remove Black-authored books from libraries, race-conscious subjects from curricula, and any mention of racism from our collective history. This is partly an obvious backlash to the racial justice movement sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others—but it’s also just the latest chapter in a long story of racist censorship.”

As a young reader, I devoured stories about my people. Most of their lives did not mirror mine. Nevertheless, I found them intriguing, giving me insight into the historical depth of struggle and triumph in American society. Even though my life and walk as a Christian differ, I am enriched by the full spectrum of sagas, viewpoints, and history that people throughout the world share.

To teach our children their history is to teach them the truth about the world, their country, and its leaders, while simultaneously providing them with critical thinking skills. It does not necessarily mean that we teach them to embrace every thought and idea, particularly if they are harmful and counter to our own values and codes of conduct. How will they make better life choices and engage in healthy debates and discussions without knowing about the vast cultural experiences of other people and themselves and the myths, mistruths, and misinformation that saturates our media? How will they become self-aware of their personal biases and stereotypes and those of their peers, teachers, and the individuals who will manage their employment and entrepreneurial ventures? To what extent will they learn pride in their ancestry and learn to chart their destiny? Finally, how will they understand that despite oppression, incarceration, discrimination, and abuse there is found dance, music, math, art, science and an abundance of brilliance, ingenuity, victory, and laughter in the stories of our people?

Preserve the history written by and about the African Diaspora. Purchase books online and in bookstores, letting shop owners and distributors know that there is a literary thirst and a market within our community and schools. Let us not allow the voices of those who live in the bondage of their own misrepresented history to determine the veracity of ours.

Blog Post Title Two

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