Today marks the 30th anniversary of the American Library Association’s Banned Book Week. 30 years of tracking, cataloging, documenting, and reporting attempts to remove books from the shelves of schools, libraries, and bookstores forever.
30 years.
The truth of the matter is that censorship has existed for as long as the written word itself; from the earliest days of chiseling images in stone to the printing press and beyond.
I visited Washington, D.C. while on an ambassador program in high school. During that formative experience I was able to view an exact replica of the United States Constitution (the original was in a vault below to temper its exposure to sunlight). I read it over and over again, basking in the immensity of one of the world’s most influential and brilliant documents ever written.
One of the things that stuck with me is that the First Amendment is pretty clear in its scope. It doesn’t contain any ifs, ands, or buts; it’s an all-or-nothing approach. Maybe I’m just not seeing it, but it doesn’t end with the words “except in the case of…”
Read on and Share the Knowledge:
http://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/column/2012/09/30/banned-books-awareness-heres-to-30-more-years-of-banned-books/
