Gordon Parks' novel The Learning Tree, a social criticism in the vein of Richard Wright's Black Boy, was first published in 1963. This was the year of the March on Washington, Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, the year of the civil rights protests in Birmingham, in which the young protestors were blasted with fire hoses and attacked by police dogs by the order of Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor. This was the year of the Birmingham church bombing and the Medgar Evers murder (Brunner 2). It was in this explosive environment that The Learning Tree entered the world. Since then, the novel has been challenged based on accusations of obscenity four times; however, as an account of segregated America from the viewpoint of a young black male, it is largely based off of the actual experiences of the author, and therefore has redeeming literary and social merit.
The first challenge was brought before the court in Mead, Washington, by the Moral Majority, a right wing Christian advocacy group. The lawsuit claimed that the novel contains "objectionable material, swearing, obscene language, explicit detail of premarital sexual intercourse, other lewd behavior, specific blasphemies against Jesus Christ and excessive violence and murder." The plaintiff claimed that "The Learning Tree 'tends to inculcate the anti-God religion of Humanism, which is antithetical to plaintiff's beliefs and which violates the free exercise and no establishment clause'"(Wall 2). The case was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Robert McNichols, and The Learning Tree was not challenged again until 1991, when it was removed from a Suwannee, Florida high school library. The novel was removed on the basis that it is "in...
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...rst Amendment Center. 16 Oct. 2005 .
Billington, James H. National Film Preservation Board. 28 Jan. 2004. Library of Congress. 17 Oct. 2005 .
Bradlaugh, Charles. Respectfully Quoted: a dictionary of quotations requested from the Congressional Research Service. Ed. Suzy Platt. Washington D.C.: Library of Congress, 1989. 398.
Brennan, William J. “Roth v. United States, Opinion of the Court.” Freedom of Speech in the United States. 24 June, 1957. Strata Publishing Inc. 12 Nov. 2005
Jackson, Robert H. “West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.” Findlaw for Legal Professionals. 14 June, 1943. Findlaw. 13 Dec. 2005
Parks, Gordon. The Learning Tree. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.
Wall, James M. "An Ominous Threat to Books." Speak Out Against the New Right. Ed. Herbert F. Vetter. Boston: Beacon Press, 1982.
Almost twenty years later, contemplating the contemporary American publishing scene, I feel a Bealean rage coming on (and with it a vague longing for one of his fits).While three percent of the American population in 1976 would have been a little over six million readers, recent surveys suggest that the consistent buyers of books in this country now total no more than half that number, and may even be as few as one million.[1]
Lewis, J. (2008). American Film: A History. New York, NY. W.W. Norton and Co. Inc. (p. 405,406,502).
The authors do eventually (pg. 205) acknowledge that some may see the book as trying to enrage the public just to sell books. In fact, Ron Levy, P...
From the opening sentence of the essay, “We are free to be you, me, stupid, and dead”, Roger Rosenblatt hones in on a very potent and controversial topic. He notes the fundamental truth that although humans will regularly shield themselves with the omnipresent First Amendment, seldom do we enjoy having the privilege we so readily abuse be used against us. Freedom of speech has been a controversial issue throughout the world. Our ability to say whatever we want is very important to us as individuals and communities. Although freedom of speech and expression may sometimes be offensive to other people, it is still everyone’s right to express his/her opinion under the American constitution which states that “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press”.
Peter, Sagal. “Should There Be Limits on Freedom of Speech?” 25 March. 2013. PSB. PBS.com 14 Nov.
The National Center For Public Research. “Brown v Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (USSC+).” Supreme Court of The United States. 1982 .
19. O'Connor v. Board of Education of School District Number 23, 545 F. Supp. 376 (N.D. Ill.) 1982
Unger, Harlow G. "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas." Encyclopedia of American Education, 3rd Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. African-American History Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 19 Nov. 2011.
Rabban, David M. Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years. New York: The University of Cambridge P, 1997
Remy, Richard C., Gary E. Clayton, and John J. Patrick. "Supreme Court Cases." Civics Today. Columbus, Ohio: Glencoe, 2008. 796. Print.
Schultz, David, and John R. Vile. The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America. 710-712. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale Virtual Reference Library, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. .
Hall, Kermit L, eds. The Oxford guide to United States Supreme Court decisions New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Shen, F. (2002 September 24). Off the shelf; Who should decide what books you read? The Washington Post, pp.2. Retrieved December 2, 2002 from Lexis-Nexis/Academic database.
Leon Forrest authored a unique and challenging novel, titled: A Tree More Ancient than Eden, which depicts Nathaniel Witherspoon 's quest for understanding his African American identity. This novel is very different from the traditional narratives that typically flow chronologically; this novel flows through the narrator in a stream of conscious thoughts. Forrest’s novel moves from one incident to another, jumping around in history while carrying around the descriptions of mystical, biblical, and historical events. Through the narrator, the author explores the African American experience and addresses the issues of race that conflict with the narrator. In this essay, I will be discussing how the novel deals with the past, how the author addresses
Freedom of speech cannot be considered an absolute freedom, and even society and the legal system recognize the boundaries or general situations where the speech should not be protected. Along with rights comes civil responsib...