Tennessee school district bans Alex Haley’s Roots under 2022 state law

With third-highest number of books banned, state removes renowned work about slave trade from library shelves

A Tennessee school district has banned Roots, the author Alex Haley’s groundbreaking novel and one of the most renowned and influential works about the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.

Knox county schools (KCS) took that step under a state law that has disappeared hundreds of titles from school libraries and alarmed advocates of free expression.