"Celebrate the Freedom to Read" Event in Nashville

ACLU-TN Sponsors Event in Observation of Banned Books Week

(Nashville, Tenn.) – The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN), in cooperation with Davis-Kidd Booksellers and in observation of Banned Books Week, will Celebrate the Freedom to Read on Tuesday, September 25, 2001, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville.

The event will feature readings by local celebrities from books that have been challenged or banned in Tennessee public libraries and public schools. The program will feature: David Alford, Artistic Director, Mockingbird Public Theatre; Rebecca Bain, Host, “The Fine Print,” Nashville Public Radio; Denise Hicks, Artistic Director, Nashville Shakespeare Festival; Amy Kurland, Owner, The Bluebird Café; Fiona Prine, Literacy Advocate; and Barry Scott, Producing Artistic Director, American Negro Playwright Theatre. ACLU-TN Executive Director Hedy Weinberg will emcee the event.

The program will begin with an excerpt from Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, in which the English naturalist first outlined the theory of evolution. In 1925, the Tennessee Legislature passed a statute prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools. That same year, in one of the most famous ACLU cases in the organization’s 81-year history, ACLU cooperating attorney Clarence Darrow came to Rhea County to defend biology teacher John T. Scopes, who had been charged with violating the statute. The statute was not repealed until 1967.

The anonymous Go Ask Alice, which was challenged in various Tennessee public schools during the 1980s, also will be included in the program. Moreover, Go Ask Alice was one of 11 books removed by the Island Trees School Board in Long Island, New York, after a conservative parents’ group believed this book and others were improper reading for students. Students represented by ACLU successfully sued to have the books returned to the school, and the Supreme Court ruled in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico that public school officials cannot censor a book based solely on the book’s content. As the Supreme Court said, “Our Constitution does not permit the official suppression of ideas.”

The program also will include an excerpt from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. In 1984, the Chair of the Knoxville School Board vowed to have all “filthy books” removed from the public schools and chose Steinbeck’s classic novel as the first target. In 1994, Of Mice and Men was removed from the curriculum of the ninth grade honors English class at Cookeville High School in Putnam County after a parent complained about its use. The Putnam County Superintendent acted as mediator for the sharply divided school board, and appointed a book review committee that succeeded in returning the book to the curriculum. During the controversy, ACLU-TN sponsored a community forum in Cookeville to discuss the free speech implications of the book’s removal from the classroom.

The program also will feature readings from Black Boy by Richard Wright and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. The evening will conclude with a reading from Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. While the American Library Association has no recorded challenges to the book in Tennessee, it has been the focus of media attention in recent weeks after the Muskogee, Oklahoma, School Board voted to remove the book from the ninth grade recommended reading list. At the same time, the Chicago Public Library chose the book for the first year of its “One Book, One Chicago” program, which is designed to encourage all Chicagoans to read and discuss the same book at the same time.

ACLU-TN is a non-profit, non-partisan membership organization dedicated to promoting and protecting the guarantees of the Bill of Rights. We focus on a range of Constitutional issues, including free expression, privacy, employee rights, police brutality, discrimination, reproductive freedom, and religious freedom. We pursue our mission through our legislative, advocacy, litigation, and public education activities.

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