Knoxville, Tennessee USA - 11 29 2022: a large statue of Alex Haley surrounded by autumn colored trees and lush green trees and plants at Alex Haley Heritage Square. (Marcus E Jones / Shutterstock)
A school district in a deeply red state decided to ban an iconic Pulitzer-winning novel about slavery because of a single passage.
Knox County Schools in Tennessee banned the 1976 novel "Roots: The Saga of an American Family," written by Alex Haley, who spent his early years and later life in the state, according to reports.
The novel, set in the South, follows the journey of Africans who were enslaved and brought to the U.S. and their later generations. It was also turned into a popular mini-series shortly after it was published.
A spokesperson for the district, Carly Harrington, explained in a statement that the decision is based on the novel's 84th chapter not being "age appropriate," The Guardian reported.
Harrington defended the decision, saying the district recognizes the novel's significance to the nation, Tennessee, and Knoxville in particular. She emphasized that the removal is "in no way a commentary on the literary or cultural value of the novel" but rather the result of complying with state law.
Harrington said that Roots was elevated to the district's review committee over a passage in chapter 84, which the committee ultimately determined met the legal threshold for "sadomasochistic abuse" as defined under Tennessee law.
She added that the committee's determinations are based strictly on the content under review and the applicable legal standard, noting that "broader themes or historical significance of a work as a whole is not a consideration under the law." Harrington also clarified that the removal does not prevent Roots from being used as instructional material in AP or Dual Enrollment English classes, provided it aligns with the course curriculum and is listed in the syllabus at the start of the year.
The school district cited the 2022 state law, the Age-Appropriate Materials Act. According to The Guardian, Tennessee has seen book banning rise to the "third-highest" rate among U.S. states since the law's passage.
Roots, published in 1976, traces the multi-generational story of Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka warrior captured in Gambia and sold into slavery in 18th-century America, through six generations of his descendants.
The novel spent 22 weeks at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, sold tens of millions of copies, and was adapted into a 1977 ABC miniseries watched by 130 million people.