To Kill a Mockingbird has been a source of significant controversy since its being the subject of classroom study as early as 1963. The book’s racial slurs, profanity, and frank discussion of rape have led people to challenge its appropriateness in libraries and classrooms across the United States. The American Library Association reported that To Kill a Mockingbird was #23 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 2000–2007.[96][97]
One of the first incidents of the book being challenged was in Hanover, Virginia, in 1966: a parent protested that the use of rape as a plot device was immoral. Johnson cites examples of letters to local newspapers, which ranged from amusement to fury; those letters expressing the most outrage, however, complained about Mayella Ewell’s attraction to Tom Robinson over the depictions of rape.[98] Upon learning the school administrators were holding hearings to decide the book’s appropriateness for the classroom, Harper Lee sent $10 to The Richmond News Leader suggesting it to be used toward the enrollment of “the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice”.[45] The National Education Association in 1968 placed the novel second on a list of books receiving the most complaints from private organizations—after Little Black Sambo.[99]
With a shift of attitudes about race in the 1970s, To Kill a Mockingbird faced challenges of a different sort: the treatment of racism in Maycomb was not condemned harshly enough. In one high-profile case outside the U.S., school districts in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia attempted to have the book removed from standard teaching curricula in the 1990s, stating:
The terminology in this novel subjects students to humiliating experiences that rob them of their self-respect and the respect of their peers. The word ‘Nigger’ is used 48 times [in] the novel… We believe that the English Language Arts curriculum in Nova Scotia must enable all students to feel comfortable with ideas, feelings and experiences presented without fear of humiliation… To Kill a Mockingbird is clearly a book that no longer meets these goals and therefore must no longer be used for classroom instruction.[100]
The response to these attempts to remove the book from standard teaching was passionate across Canada and the United States, and many of the initial complainants were labeled as overly sensitive and “benign censors.”[100] Isaac Saney, who supports attempts to ban the book, concludes that the media response to the removal effort was a form of institutionalized racism: “The media’s editorialising against all ‘censorship’ and ‘banning’ includes vigorous hostility to the censorship and banning of racism. Its advocacy of freedom of speech includes freedom of speech for racists and fascists.”[100][note 2]
To Kill a Mockingbird. (2009, October 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:49, November 11, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=To_Kill_a_Mockingbird&oldid=322521877