For centuries race has been used as a justification for discrimination, forced dispossession, disenfranchisement, slavery, and genocide. Discussing this, particularly when it has relevance to here and now, can make people uncomfortable. Listed here are books that some have tried to ban for this reason, as well as books with race as a major theme that have been the target of ban attempts for other stated reasons.
| Title | Author | First published | Recent incident |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Kid | Jerry Craft | 2019 | 2021 |
| His Name Is George Floyd | Robert Samuels et al. | 2022 | 2023 |
| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | 1885 | 1998 |
| The Rabbits' Wedding | Garth Williams | 1958 | 1959 |
| The 1619 Project | Nikole Hannah-Jones (ed.) | 2019 | 2020 |
| The Bluest Eye | Toni Morrison | 1970 | 2022 |
| Between the World and Me | Ta-Nehisi Coates | 2015 | 2023 |
| Beloved | Toni Morrison | 1987 | 2013 |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin | Harriet Beecher Stowe | 1852 | 1857 |
Edited by John Mark Ockerbloom (onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu), who is solely responsible for its content.
Read Banned Books is a featured exhibit of The Online Books Page and is subject to its copyrights and licenses.