thanks everybody thanks very much to
come to Evan all the others who work so
hard to arrange this I'm honored to be
here and this is a fabulous idea banned
books week I pay attention to every year
um here's the note librarians are my
heroes they should be your heroes go
find a librarian and ask if they want a
hug don't just run up a hugger librarian
that would be wrong but us because they
fight for things we will believe in
including free speech including
anonymity privacy and access to
knowledge where the warrant is I have a
pulse no they have a lot of money right
so librarians yay
well books are banned by more entities
than school boards and the others who
control access to libraries books are
also banned by legislatures they're also
banned by courts and that's gonna be the
book that I'm going to read to you it is
a book written by an African American
novelist Alice Randall Mizraim who grew
up fascinated with the world have gone
with the wind and gradually started
noticing that there was a curious
omission in Gone with the Wind
african-americans slaves or if they were
there they were merely there as
stereotypes figures that but barely that
barely registered so what I want to do
is read what she did she decided she
would write the story of Gone with the
Wind again but she would write it from
the slaves perspective she called it the
wind done gone in the story the main
character sayonara is a slave her
half-sister other is scarlet is
basically compani interesting character
her lover are Rhett and obviously gay
Ashley Wilkes appears a and all the
white characters are flat
one-dimensional just like the
african-american characters were in Gone
with the Wind and slavery is not
romanticized unlike a federal district
court judge decided this was copyright
infringement you can't tell this story
this story that is owned by the Mitchell
estate Margot Mitchell the it's still
under copyright
and this was a violation of this
mitchell estates property rights they
said the judge the district court judge
said ice the way I see it your client
just took a bulldozer and drove it
through the walls of Terra and drove all
over that landscape and I can enjoy I
can enjoin a bulldozer can't I to which
the lawyers form is Randall said our
bulldozer is protected by the First
Amendment
getting to the appeals court for him to
believe that what did the lawyers on
that case was a Duke grad who had
studied Duke Law School and had also
studied literature at Duke her name is
Jennifer Jenkins you should go ask her
about the case she has some good stories
to tell you know whatever so here is
what that judge for some weeks managed
to enjoy wind done gone
Alice Randall today is the anniversary
of my birth I have 28 years this diary
and the pen I am writing with are the
best gifts I got except maybe my cake
are gave me the diary the pen and the
white frosted tears he also gave me
emerald ear bulbs I think maybe Maya
neural such as green glass I hope maybe
they might be genuine I was born May
25th 1845 at half past 7:00 in the
morning into slavery on a cotton farm a
day's ride from Atlanta my father
planter was the master of the place my
mother was the mammy my half-sister
other was the bell of five counties she
was not beautiful but men seldom
recognized this caught up in the cloud
of commotion and scent in which she
moved or certainly didn't he married her
but then again he left her maybe that
means something to me maybe he's the
Unseld and one who do recognize if I
strip the flesh off my bones like they
stripped the clothes off my flesh in the
slave market down near the battery in
Charleston this would be my skeleton
childhood on cotton farm a time of soul
fetch slavery in Charleston a
bare-breasted hour on an auction block
drudge slavery as a maid in beauties
Atlanta brothel and a
season of candle flame concubinage in
the Attic of a bawdy house a watery
grand tour of Europe and finally
concubinage in my own white clapboard
home with green shutters and gas lights
how many miles have I traveled to come
back to here mammy was my mama even
though she let me go I miss her I miss
her every time I look into a mirror and
see her eyes sometimes I comb through my
long springy curls and pretend that the
hand holding the comb is hers
but I don't know what that looks like
then I wish I was other the girl whose
sausage curls I've seen mammy comb and
comb and comb I wish for the tight kinks
of the comer or the glossy sausages of
the comb I wish not to be out of the
picture thanks very much thanks ash and
cam and Evan and others for organizing
this and all of you for coming so I
picked two classic works whose banning
is central both to the development of
the First Amendment and to their history
James Joyce's Ulysses classic of modern
literature turns out to be so involved
in its own history with its banning and
then the lifting of the band that I
realized earlier this week when I opened
up my old copy of it that this copy from
the 50s actually opens with a complete
transcript of the 1933 decision by Judge
John Woolsey lifting the ban on the
admission of Ulysses into the US the
other the other book is the communist
manifesto which was entered into
evidence in the 1951 case of US v Denis
holding the members of the Communist
could be criminally punished in the
United States for abstract advocacy of
the doctrines of Marxism a pivotal case
in the development of First Amendment
protection for political speech in this
country what you might think I don't
actually have a handsome down copy of
the communist manifesto online you can
get it here maybe not in China or North
Korea but you can easily find it online
in the US so they're both written with a
certain intensity certain rush of energy
momentum
it is perhaps often characteristic of
folks whose reasons for surviving are
connected with their reasons for
attracting bands so I ran them together
in a way that I thought captured
something of their respective and
distinct voices begins with Ulysses with
the famous first lines of Ulysses
stately plump buck Mulligan came from
the stare head
bearing a bowl of lather on which a
mirror and razor lay crossed a yellow
dressing-gown Unger told was sustained
gently behind him by the mild morning
air he held the ball aloft and intoned
the history of all hitherto existing
society is the history of class
struggles the big y'see a railroad has
got the upper hand has pitilessly torn a
senator the motley feudal ties the bound
man to his natural superiors and left
remaining water nexus between man and
man and naked self-interest think
callous cash payment the bourgeoisie has
stripped of its halo every occupation
hitherto honoured and looked up to with
Reverend all has converted the physician
the lawyer the priest the poet the man
of science into its paid wage laborers
give a snap of my two fingers for all
their learning why don't they go out and
create something I asked atheists or
whatever they call themselves
go wash the kaaba's off themselves who
was the first person in the universe
before there was anybody that made it
all who they don't know neither do I so
there you are they might as well try to
stop the Sun from rising tomorrow
constant revolutionising of production
uninterrupted disturbance of all social
conditions everlasting uncertainty and
agitation distinguished the bushwa epoch
from all earlier ones Sun shines for you
he said the day be relying among the
rhododendrons on health head and the
gray tweed suit and his straw hat the
day I got him to propose to me first I
gave him a bit of seed cake out of my
mouth all fixed fast frozen relations
with their train of ancient and
venerable prejudices and opinions are
swept away all your formed ones become
antiquated before they can ossify my God
after that longer kiss I lost my breath
yes he said I was a flower of the
mountain yes so we are all flowers a
woman's body yes that was one true thing
he said in his life and the Sun shines
for you today yeah that was why I liked
him
all of it is solid melts into air all
that is holy is profaned and man is at
last compelled to face with sober senses
his real conditions of life and his
relations with his kind all perfume yes
and his heart was going like mad and I
said yes I said yes I will yes
thank you
as a member of the research faculty who
also wears a librarian hat most of the
time I am especially honored to be part
of this event I'd be willing to bet you
real money that the freedom to read is
near and dear to the heart of every
professional librarian you'll ever meet
and if you ever do find yourself talking
to someone who's worked in a public
library like I have or a K through 12
library I would bet you real money that
they have a story about a challenge to a
book in their collection unlike some of
the titles you're going to hear today my
book selection isn't a frequently band
or even challenged book I've chosen the
Egypt game by Zilpha Kili Schneider it's
one of her three Newbery Honor winning
books if you don't know much about
children's literature that's basically
like being an Oscar nominee for an
author the Egypt game is not a
frequently banned book as I said I only
found a reference to one single
challenge a couple of years back and I
don't believe that it was successful and
that's probably worth noting that thanks
to efforts of groups like the ACLU
professor Jenkins maybe some of you
someday in the future as lawyers many of
these challenges are not successful but
the fact that this book was even
challenged at all to me really
illustrates that any title can be a
target of this the Egypt game was
published in 1967 and it tells the story
of a group of young friends who share an
interest in the history of ancient Egypt
and they create this space where they
can dress up and play act these mock
Egyptian rituals in a nearby abandoned
storage yard so these Egyptian worship
rituals were the reason for the
challenge by the way but after something
really terrible happens that shatters
the security of their neighborhood the
group needs to get creative about
keeping their after-school game alive
and keeping it secret as well so this is
where my passage picks up it shortly
after a new player has joined the game
and right before that terrible thing
takes place the Egypt game Zilpha Kili
Schneider for a few days it was fun just
doing everything over for Elizabeth to
appreciate and after that they got
around to starting a new part of the
game in the new part
Marshall finally got to be the young
Pharaoh Marsha Moses again and Elizabeth
was the queen never bet April and
Melanie were priestesses first they were
evil priestesses leading Marsha Moses
and never Beth's into the clutches of
the wicked set and then there were
priestesses of Isis coming to the rescue
that was about where they were in the
game when something happened that almost
put an end to the Egypt game and not to
the Egypt game alone but to all the
outdoor games in the whole neighborhood
on that particular afternoon the girls
had built a dungeon out of cardboard
boxes in the corner of the storage yard
Elizabeth and Marshall were languishing
in the dungeon tied hand and foot
victims of the priests of set April and
Melanie were creeping cautiously from
pillar to pillar in the temple of evil
on their way to the rescue Melanie was
crouching behind an imaginary pillar
when suddenly she straightened up and
stood listening in the dungeon Elizabeth
heard it too and quickly untied her
bonds April ran to help Marshall with
his they were really only kite string
and knotted easily from somewhere not
too far away perhaps the main alley
behind the Casa Rosada mrs. Ross's voice
was calling Melanie Marshall Melanie
there was something about the tone of
her voice that made Melanie's eyes widen
with fear something's wrong
she said it's too early April nodded she
never gets home this early they
scrambled through the hole in the fence
and dragging Marshall to hurry him up
they dashed for the main alley behind
the Casa Rosada
from there they could safely answer
without giving the location of Egypt
away thank you
good thing they didn't ban green eggs
and ham his first book ever read when I
was 3 remember reading it I spend a lot
of time in Spain and when I was there I
often read Ernest Hemingway who spent a
lot of time in Spain and Pamplona where
I am a couple weeks every year and it's
talking about reading his books there
it's particularly powerful and he was
very involved with the Spanish Civil War
an event that I've been trying to come
to grips with because it's like he's so
much wanted the United States to become
involved in the Civil War England in the
United States both stayed out of it and
Hitler didn't Hitler came in on the side
of the fascists and the rest is history
but his books are incredibly powerful I
think for Whom the Bell Tolls is
probably my favorite book that I've read
I keep reading it and I'm glad to have
had a chance to look at it again and
it's on the list it's number 30 on the
list of banned books by the ala
Hemingway he's got three he's got
farewell to arms at number 18 that's not
the kind of a sports event doesn't it
and the Sun Also Rises at number 18 and
fair Walter Arms is number 20 this is
only number 30 but I think it's
interesting for our purposes today it
was the post office said it was a book
that could not be mailed and the reason
why it's about the Spanish Civil War
published in 1940 and but the thought
was it was pro-communist and that's true
the Republicans and the Spanish Civil
War had some communists and some other
folks on their side the the political
world is much more complicated in other
countries than in ours but I think the
thing that's even more interesting is it
was unanimously selected by the Pulitzer
Prize jurors in 1941 to win a Pulitzer
Prize but the chairman of the board the
president of Columbia University
Nicholas Marie Butler
vetoed it he thought it was not a good
book he thought it was offensive and
profane and he said I hope he will
reconsider before you asked the
University to be associated with an
award for a work of this nature and
there was no fiction Award winner that
year for the Pulitzer Prize so different
ways of banning and condemning books the
for Whom the Bell Tolls that the title
comes from the poem by John Donne I'll
just read a little of it no man is an
island entire of itself every man as a
piece of a continent a part of the main
any man's death diminishes me because I
am involved in mankind and therefore
never send to know For Whom the Bell
Tolls it tolls for him it's a book about
you know a couple of days in the life of
the Spanish Civil War an American is
their public becomes involved his job is
to blow up a bridge he doesn't really
know why he's not quite sure the people
he works with his allies are not too
sure there's a great deal about death
and individuality so he reads some of
that this is about one of the people
that compatriots that he's with if he
had known how many men have had to use a
hill to die on it would not have cheered
him any for it in the moment he was
passing through men are not impressed by
what has happened to other men in
similar circumstances any more than a
widow of one day is helped by the
knowledge that other loved husbands have
died whether one has fear of it or not
ones death is difficult to accept sort
of accepted it but there was no
sweetness in his acceptance even at 52
he joked about it to himself but he
looked at the sky and at the far
mountains and he swallowed the wine and
he did not want it if one must die he
thought and clearly one must I can die
but I hate it
dining was nothing and he had no picture
of it nor fear of it in his mind but
living was a field of grain blowing wind
on the side of a hill living was a hawk
in the sky living was an earthen jar of
water in the dust of the threshing with
the grain flailed out in the chaff
blowing living was a horse between your
legs and a carbine under one leg and a
hill in a valley in a stream with trees
along it and the far side of the valley
and the hills beyond sort of past the
wine bottle back and not at his head and
thanks he moved forward and patted the
dead horse on the shoulder where the
muzzle of the automatic fire had burned
the hide he could still smell the burnt
hair he thought how he had held the
horse there trembling with fire around
them whispering and crackling roving
around them like a curtain and it
carefully shot him just at the
intersection of the crossed lines
between two eyes and years.this another
part of the passage there's nothing else
than now there's neither yesterday
certainly nor is there tomorrow how old
must you be before you know that there's
only now and if now is only two days
then two days is your life and
everything in it will be in proportion
this is how you live a life in two days
and if you stop complaining and asking
for what you will never get you'll have
a good life the good life is not
measured by any biblical span another
chick part how do we know of what there
is to know I wish that I were going to
live a long time instead of going to die
today because I've learned much about
life in these few days more I think that
in any other time I'd like to be an old
man to really know I wonder if you keep
on learning or if there is only a
certain amount each man can understand I
thought I knew so many things that I
know nothing of I wish there was more
time
read my excerpt to explain why I
selected it there's a couple reasons
here and look I have it off a Cox
library shelf bury my heart at Wounded
Knee and Indian history of the American
West by D Brown thought to be one of the
great classic works of cataloguing the
displacement of Native Americans over
the last half of the 19th century so
what happened repeated over and over and
over again so if you want to say you
read this book you can read one chapter
because they all play out again and
again and again there's something like
20 different tribes that are cataloged
and book and each of them had the same
kind of violent experience and in the
white man's quest to displace Native
Americans seduced in the process by
first there's a friendly gathering and
so that happened
and right around the beginning of civil
war 1861 where the model of Scilly were
encouraged to come in to this one area
and they didn't have to be near the
military post but there was a military
post nearby and there could be some
trading that occurred there between the
Native Americans and the Bluecoats okay
and that post was out fought for Tory
okay so here we go 1861 after the winter
meeting in which you've set up the fort
okay there were seven months of
friendship between the soldiers and the
Navajos we move reached the onions of a
big war somewhere far to the east a war
between the white Americans of the north
and the south
they learned that some of the candy
soldiers that the local soldiers had
exchanged their blue coats for gray
coats and gone east to fight against the
blue coat soldier ones in this time of
friendship the Navajos went often to the
fort okay to trade and draw rations from
their asia most the soldiers made them
feel welcome and the custom grew up to
having a horse race between the Navajos
and the soldiers all the Navajos looked
forward to these contests and on raising
days hundreds of men women and children
would dress in their brightest costumes
and ride their finest ponies to the fort
on the criss sunny morning of september
19 1861 several races will run but the
special race of the day was scheduled at
noon it was between pistol bullet a name
given to the tribe by the soldiers on a
navajo pony and a lieutenant on a
quarter horse okay many bets were made
on this race money blankets livestock
beat whatever one could think of the
horses jumped off together but a few bit
seconds into the race pistol bullet was
in trouble he'd lost control of his pony
and it ran off the track soon everyone
knew the pistol bullets bride Elaine had
been slashed with a knife the Navajos
went to a judge's who were all soldiers
and demanded that the race be run again
the judges refused they declared the
lieutenant's quarter horse was the
winner and immediately the soldiers
formal formed a victory parade for march
into the fort to collect their bets
infuriated by the trickery the Navajos
stormed after them but the fort's gates
were slammed shut in their faces the
navajo attempted to force the entrance a
sudden L shot him dead what happened
next was written down by a white soldier
the Netherlands scholars and children
ran in all directions and were shot and
bayonet it
I succeeded in forming about 20 men I
then marched out to the east I'll oppose
there I saw a soldier murdering two
little children and a woman I hello
hello them immediately to the soldier to
stop he looked up but did not obey my
order I ran as quick as I could but
could not get there soon enough to
prevent him from killing the two
innocent children and wounding severely
to squall I ordered his best to be taken
off and taken prisoner to the post
meanwhile the colonel had given the
orders to an officer of the day to have
the artillery Mountain Hauser's brought
out into the open upon the Indians the
sergeant in charge of the mountain
Hauser's pretended not to understand the
order given him for he considered it an
unlawful order but being cursed by the
officer of the day and threatened he had
to execute the river or else himself be
in trouble the engine scattered in all
over the valley below the post attacked
the post heard we did the Mexican heard
but did not succeed in getting a nice
talk also attacked the Express men soon
expectant some ten miles from the post
took his coast and mail bag and wounded
him in the arm after the massacre there
were no more Indians to be seen about
the post with the exception of a few
scores favorites of the officers the
countermanding officer endeavoured to
make peace again with the Navajos by
sending some of those favorite scores to
talk to the Chiefs but the only
satisfaction the squirrels received was
a good floor game after that day
September 22nd 1861 it was a long time
before there was friendship again
between the white men and the novelist
this book stuck in my mind because it
came out within a month of the
announcement of the massacres like new.i
and and Vietnam and it was something
that was all part time our issue so that
that was one issue it also comes to mind
time and again when we hear the violence
I keep thinking how can somebody do
something like that to another human
being you know I know if it's part of
the DNA the book was banned because it
was soon
be provocative you know what a what a
bad statement to make right that we
should never ignore history we can draw
lessons from the history right but we
can also certainly control a certain
amount of morality from the
understanding and reading history
stories like this and then on a lighter
note if they are saying that I got this
book because I was then an advisor on
antitrust matters in Washington and my
career one of my very first tasks was to
lay out what turned out to be an
enforcement action it used to book in
the Month Club because I have something
called the negative option that would
send you a book and you've got it if you
are a member of the club and you don't
have to keep it you could send it back
but you have to pay the postage can
you'd see the unfairness of that so I
dropped it up this enforcement order and
we ultimately negotiated something to
prevent people like me from getting a
book that would undoubtedly remain in
their minds okay so I know who the
winners of that process where the degree
was a great book great story but a
tragic story about America history
I was I was here to be on backup and it
turns out that well the backup is needed
as I was perusing certain titles I
really wanted to choose a children's
book the reason that this event is here
this year is because when I went to law
school at the University of Michigan
that was always a big hit we had packed
rooms like you have today people's
favorite professors and and often the
biggest hit was the children's book and
part of that is because people can't
really believe that have been banned as
I was looking at the list because of
things like challenge industry green
eggs and ham was challenged because well
there if you read it in a certain way
that I'd never thought of maybe there's
like could be some homosexual allegory
going on there just need to think about
that's very interesting anything that
I'd seen before but but so there's so
the second thing it was I was struck by
was how many of these books that we just
had in our house so maybe that tells you
all something about either classic
children's literature or the things that
my children and I like to read I
so the the selection that I chose today
is where the wild things are by Maurice
Sendak the reason that it was banned a
boy throwing a tantrum was considered
dangerous behavior and Sendak was
accused of glorifying max's anger
promoting psychologists to condemn it as
too dark and frightening in a march 1969
column for Ladies Home Journal a child
psychologist named brutal Bettelheim
called the book psychologically damaging
four three and four year olds he thought
the idea that a mother would deprive a
child of food was an inappropriate form
of punishment and that it would
traumatize young readers and for this
reason and others that it was banned
heavily in the American South and by
libraries nationwide in the first years
of its release it's also been challenged
over the years for images that are
considered to promote witchcraft and
supernatural elements and my children
not old enough for Harry Potter yet but
you can imagine the number of Harry
Potter books that would otherwise be up
here for that same reason right
promoting supernatural elements so I'm
gonna read where the wild things are by
Maurice Sendak the night max wore his
wolf suit and made mischief of one kind
and another his mother called him wild
thing and Max said I'll eat you up so he
was sent to bed without eating anything
that very night in Max's room a forest
grew and grew and grew until his ceiling
hung with vines and the walls became the
world all around and an ocean tumbled by
with a private boat for max and he
sailed off through night and day and a
man out of weeks and almost over a year
to where the wild things are and when he
came to the place where the wild things
are they roared their terrible roars and
gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled
terrible eyes and showed their terrible
claws till max said be still and tamed
them with the magic trick of staring
into all their yellow eyes without
blinking once and they were frightened
and called him the most wild thing of
all and made him king of all wild things
and now cried max let the wild rumpus
start did not have cases to read now
stop max said and sent the wild things
off to bed without their supper and Max
the king of all wild things was lonely
and wanted to be where someone loved him
best of all then all around from far
away and across the world he smelled
good things to eat so he gave up being
king of where the wild things are but
the wild things cried no please don't go
we'll eat you up we love you so and Max
said no the wild things roared their
terrible roars and gnashed their
terrible teeth and rolled their terrible
eyes and showed their terrible claws but
max stepped into his private boat and
waved goodbye and sailed back over a
year and in and out of weeks and through
a day and into the night of his very own
room where he found his supper waiting
for him and it was still hot
you
