KNOXVILLE, TN — It was the cry of outrage literally heard round the world. One of the greatest African American writers, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, had his book Roots removed from the shelves of Knox County schools by a secret internal committee that had deemed it too violent.
Acting on the side of the great historical context provided by the book, Superintendent Jon Rysewyk overrode the internal committee decision and ordered the book returned to the shelves immediately.
The reshelving did not stop the outpouring of community leaders and organizations who gathered for both the work session and regular board meeting to protest the banning of 124 books by this Knox County internal review board over the last several years.
Standing outside the Board of Education meeting for over an hour, protestors chanted and passed out signs to show their disdain for the decisions made that they felt removed the freedom to read.
Reverend Sam Brown, who is also the local president of the NAACP, spoke about the discriminatory practices, as did members of the League of Women Voters of Knoxville-Knox County and other groups.
Once inside, the protestors joined a packed board meeting where the decision to tackle the law from the state level that guides the bans was discussed for over 4 hours at the work session and voted on later in the week.
The Age-Appropriate Materials Act is the Tennessee state law that directs removal of all books from school shelves that contain violence, sexual abuse, nudity, or sexual content. The rape description of an enslaved woman in Chapter 84 violated the law.
The board, after much more discussion, voted to move forward on a resolution to amend the law and consider the book as a whole and not just single passages. They are also asking that the law be changed to distinguish between grade levels so age-appropriate materials can be removed from elementary schools and still be placed in high schools.
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