In the United States, occasional efforts have been made to restrict the reading of the book. In addition to its Concord ban, it has, at various times, also been:
* excluded from the juvenile sections of the Brooklyn Public library and other libraries
* removed from reading lists due to alleged racism (e.g., in March of 1995 it was removed from the reading list of 10th grade English classes at National Cathedral School in Washington, DC, according to the Washington Post (a New Haven, Connecticut correspondent to Banned Books Online reports it has been removed from a public school program there as well).
* removed from school programs at the behest of groups maintaining that its frequent use of the word nigger implies that the book as a whole is racist, despite what defenders maintain is the overwhelmingly anti-racist plot of the book, its satirical nature, and the anachronism of applying current definitions of polite speech to past times.
Russell Baker wrote:
"The people whom Huck and Jim encounter on the Mississippi are drunkards, murderers, bullies, swindlers, lynchers, thieves, liars, frauds, child abusers, numskulls, hypocrites, windbags and traders in human flesh. All are white. The one man of honor in this phantasmagoria is 'Nigger Jim,' as Twain called him to emphasize the irony of a society in which the only true gentleman was held beneath contempt."[1]
The American Library Association ranked Huckleberry Finn the fifth most frequently challenged (in the sense of attempting to ban) book in the United States during the 1990s. |
