May 15, 2026 Edit

Books relating to the stories and histories of Black people and other marginalized groups are increasingly being banned by schools and even the federal government.

Now, one Tennessee county has banned one of the most famous books relating to slavery, written by one of the state’s most famous authors.

Knox County Schools bans ‘Roots’ by Tennesseean Alex Haley

WBIR reported that the Knox County school system has removed Alex Haley’s acclaimed book, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, from its school libraries.

The book was removed under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act, a state law that requires books to be removed from school libraries if they are deemed to contain offensive material such as nudity, sexual content or “excessive violence.”

Roots, first published in 1976, tells the story of Haley’s family beginning with the brutal enslavement of his ancestor Kunta Kinte from West Africa.

Haley, who spent part of his childhood in Tennessee and returned to live in the state during the latter years of his life, has regularly been honored in the state, with a large statue of the author sitting in Morningside Park in Knoxville.

Roots was a New York Times bestseller and won a Pulitzer Prize. The book has also been adapted multiple times, most notably as a sensational 1977 ABC miniseries watched by an estimated 130 million viewers.

source: Tennessee School System Bans ‘Roots’ As Thousands Of Books Face Conservative Challenges