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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn excited controversy from the outset, when Concord Public Library banned the book in 1885, charging that the novel was "trash suitable only for the slums." Conventional morality was offended by the street vernacular spoken by Jim and Huck, as well as by their coarse behavior. Denver Public Library banned the novel in 1902, and Brooklyn (New York) Public Library removed it from the children's room on the charge that "Huck not only itched but he scratched, and that he said sweat when he should have said perspiration." In 1930, Soviet border guards confiscated the novel, along with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

In the United States, the furor quieted down for five decades, as the novel became an American classic and a mainstay of school reading lists. A new challenge emerged in 1957, when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People protested the racist aspects of the book and demanded that it be removed from high schools in New York City. African-American author Ralph Ellison noted that Huck's friendship with Jim demeaned the stature of black males, because the adolescent Huck is portrayed as equal or superior to the adult Jim in decision-making capability. In 1969, Miami Dade (Florida) Junior College removed the novel from the required reading list, charging that the book inhibited learning in black students by creating an emotional block.

In 1973, the Scott, Foresman publishing company yielded to the demands of school officials in Tennessee and prepared a version of the novel that omitted material to which officials objected. The version omits the passage in Chapter 18 in which the young men of the Grangerford family toast their parents each morning with alcohol. It appears in The United States in Literature, a textbook distributed and used nationally.

The most frequent objection to the novel has been its language in reference to African Americans. Yielding to pressures from school districts across the nation, textbook publishers up to 1975 met challenges by substituting euphemisms for the term nigger. Scott, Foresman rewrote passages to eliminate the word, Singer replaced the term with slave, and McGraw-Hill replaced the term with servant. In a 1975 dissertation, Dorothy Weathersby found that Ginn and Company was the only text - book publisher to retain the word, but their textbook included an essay by Lionel Trilling to explain the need to include the word in the novel.

The novel has been frequently banned or challenged by school districts for its language, particularly its racial references and the use of the slur nigger. A significant number of such challenges have come from welleducated, middle-class, African-American parents who wish to prevent their children from exposure to such insulting references. The Winnetka (Illinois) school district challenged the novel as being racist in 1976, as did school districts in Warrington, Pennsylvania, in 1981; Davenport, Iowa, in 1981; Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1982; Houston, Texas, in 1982; State College, Pennsylvania, in 1983; Springfield, Illinois, in 1984; and Waukegan, Illinois, in 1984.

In 1988, Rockford (Illinois) public schools removed the book from their required reading list because it contained the word nigger. Berrien Springs (Michigan) High School challenged the novel that same year, while Caddo Parish (Louisiana) removed the novel from both its school libraries and required reading lists, charging that it contained racially offensive passages. The following year, the novel was challenged at Sevierville County (Tennessee) High School due to perceived racial slurs and the use of ungrammatical dialect.

The 1990s brought new challenges and continued antagonism to the novel. Citing derogatory references to African Americans, parents challenged its inclusion on the supplemental English reading list in Erie (Pennsylvania) High School in 1990. That same year, the novel was challenged as being racist in Plano (Texas) Independent School District.

In 1991, citing the repeated use of the word nigger, parents in Mesa (Arizona) Unified School District challenged inclusion of the novel in the curriculum and claimed that such language damaged the self-esteem of young African Americans. For the same reason, that year the novel was removed from the required reading list in the Terrebone Parish public schools in Houma, Louisiana. Also in 1991, it was temporarily removed from the Portage (Michigan) curriculum after African-American parents charged that the portrayal of Jim and other African Americans made their children "uncomfortable."

In 1992, the school superintendent of Kinston (North Carolina) School District removed the book from the middle school in the belief that the students were too young to read a work containing the word nigger. Concern with the same word, as well as additional "offensive and racist language," motivated a 1992 challenge to including the novel on the required reading list in Modesto (California) High School. In 1993, challengers charged in the Carlisle (Pennsylvania) school system that the racial slurs in the novel were offensive to both African-American and Caucasian students. In contrast to other areas, the Lewisville (Texas) school board retained the novel on school reading lists in 1994, despite challenges of its racism. The most comprehensive objection to the novel regarded its use in English classes at Taylor County (Butler, Georgia) High School in 1994, when challengers not only claimed that it contained racial slurs and improper grammar, but it also did not reject slavery.

Also in 1994, in Enid, Oklahoma, a group called the Southern Heights Ministerial Alliance challenged the novel as required reading in American literature classes and brought the issue to the textbook review committee. The committee recommended that the book be restricted to students taking advanced-placement American Literature classes, a move that the school board soundly rejected in a 7-0 vote. Instead, the board passed a resolution to keep the book in the curriculum and enacted a measure to require teacher training to be led by Harvard professor and African-American Twain scholar Jocelyn Chadwick.

In 2002, an African-American student in Portland, Oregon, challenged the use of the novel as a required reading and claimed that he was offended by the use of ethnic slurs in the novel. The board considered the challenge and voted to retain the novel.

In 2003, parents of students in the Community High School in Normal, Illinois, sophomore literature class challenged use of the novel in the curriculum. They asserted that the novel is degrading to African Americans. The school board considered the challenge and decided to retain the novel in the curriculum and to offer students an alternative. Students who do not feel comfortable reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are given the option of reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok.

In 2004, an African-American student in Renton, Washington, complained to school officials that the novel degraded her and her culture. The novel was not required reading in the school system, but it appeared on a supplemental list of approved books. School administrators ordered the book removed from the reading lists in the three high schools in Renton after receiving the complaint but decided to keep the book available for classroom use.

Bibliography:

1) Bradley, Julia T. "Censoring the School Library: Do Students Have the Right to Read?" Connecticut Law Review 10 (Spring 1978): 747-771.

2) Cloonan, Michele. "The Censorship of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Top of the News, Winter 1984, pp. 191-194.

3) Geller, Evelyn. Forbidden Books in American Public Libraries, 1876-1939: A Study in Cultural Change. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984.

4) Nelson, Randy F. "Banned in Boston and Elsewhere." The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, Calif.: William Kaufman, 1981.

5) People For the American Way. Attacks on the Freedom to Learn, 1990-91. Washington, D.C.: People For the American Way, 1991.

6) Reichman, Henry. Censorship and Selection: Issues and Answers for Schools. Chicago: American Library Association; Arlington, Va.: American Association of School Administrators, 1993. A joint publication.

7) Weathersby, Dorothy T. Censorship of Literature Textbooks in Tennessee: A Study of the Commission, Publishers, Teachers, and Textbooks. Ed.D. dissertation, University of Tennessee, 1975.

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