A Brief History of Banned Books
11th grade at Sam Houston High School in Texas and the AP Honors English teacher had designed a censorship1 section. (I don’t think it was a whole semester, but in my memory it feels like researching the history of banned books in the United States, reading a specific banned book2, researching the context of its prohibition, and then presenting to the class took most of the fall).
12th grade and I needed a particular book in the school library. While searching the catalogue, I discovered the existence of a book with the curious title, From Aardvarks to Zebras: A Guide to Procreation in the Animal Kingdom. To my surprise, it was held in a special restricted area3 and I needed to be eighteen years old for access. Having a summer birthday, I was only seventeen and therefore unable to see the book. The previous year, we had explored banned books in a class that definitely favored the idea that knowledge should be free, so I was surprised to learn my school library had its own banned book section.
How large was this restricted area? How many books were hidden there? Why even keep them if an overwhelming majority of the school would not be allowed to read them?
My high school was fairly large (450 or so in my graduating class; Texas high school at the time was 10th, 11th, and 12th grade)4. It was a large one story building except for a smaller second floor that overlooked the courtyard in the middle. The library was housed on this second floor, along with the Student Government room.
I went up and down the stairs leading to the library several times a week for Student Government business since I was Class President. Maybe I should also mention that I made morning announcements over the school’s intercom before the Pledge of Allegiance? Or that during football games, I wore tight blue jeans, a Texas flag designed cowboy shirt, and red leather boots and waved our school flag?56
I was an active student leader and involved in a variety of extracurriculars - but somehow my age kept me from seeing a book in the school library!
I was complaining about this injustice in AP Biology. You know who was eighteen? Chuck, the captain of the football team. He said he would check the book out for me. The teacher had been gone from the room for a while,7 but neither of us felt the need to wait for her return to ask permission to go to the library. Neither of us thought we needed a pass to walk down the school hallway. I often hung banners on those walls.
We walked down the hall, turned a corner, down another hall, and up the stairs. Chuck, being eighteen, was able to easily check out the book.
Walking back to our class, an unfriendly voice directed us to stop.
“Where’s your hall pass?”
Neither of us knew the teacher. And incredibly, she did not know us.8
Because of my announcement duties, I joked with the Vice-Principal9 every morning. Being involved with theater, I performed in school plays. I sang in choir.10 I attended Speech competition. A couple years before, I was in the mathletes! And Chuck! I forget all his accolades, but at the time, he was already Harvard-bound, the only one (I think) from our class. And like I said, he was Captain of the football team!11
I said, “You don’t know who we are?”
She said, “Are you saying you don’t have a hall pass?”
She was not smiling.
I said, “We do not have a hall pass.”
She said, “What are you holding behind your back? What are you hiding?”
Because you can proudly be against censorship without wanting to show off you checked out a book on the sex life of animals.
I began to question my heretofore unexamined assumption of good-student power. This teacher had a point. We did just walk out of a class on a whim. We were wandering freely through the halls. And for what? A book neither of us cared about, a book neither of us planned to read, a book we sought merely because we were opposed in principle12 to a banned books section in our library. If we got punished for this, would this foolish adventure have been worth it?
She took the book and escorted us back to our class. The unamused teacher from the hallway handed the book to our Biology teacher (who had returned to the class during our absence) and said, “I found these two wandering the hall. I think they stole this book from the library.”
Our teacher said she would handle it and the displeased hallway teacher left. Our teacher shook her head and said, “Sit down, boys.”
Of course we weren’t in trouble. We were active student leaders involved in a lot of extracurriculars! We quickly explained the situation. The restricted section in the library. The age prohibition. No warnings were given, but our teacher did seize the opportunity to tease us.
“What book could be so important you couldn’t wait until lunch or after school to get it?”
She requested the class’ attention and elaborated on how the book must be incredibly important to me and Chuck. She read the title. Then she opened it to a random page to read. Later I learned, she had opened it to the best possible page.
“Chapter 3: Camels. One hump, or two?”
Recently, Chuck Palahniuk posted about his books being banned from Texas prisons and some school libraries. His post reminded me of this story from my youth.
My book was Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
A locked closet behind the librarian’s desk.
The year after I graduated, 9th grade joined the halls of High Schools, which is how it is today.
Our school flag being the Texan flag. Our school mascot being the Texan. My role being rousing the crowd during lulls in the game as a member of the Bell Guard, which mostly did skits during pep rallies and shot t-shirts into the stands during half-time.
Maybe you think it redundant that a Texan would be a mascot. To which I could reply, “Tell me you are not from Texas, without saying you are not from Texas.”
If you weren’t an honors student, you probably don’t understand how trusted honors classes were. Teachers would leave us alone in the classroom for half the period or more. And they weren’t wrong! We mostly talked quietly and did our work! We were honors students! We all wanted good grades. No one ever went through the teacher’s desk looking for confiscated items, no one drew penises on the chalk board, no one shoved gum in the pencil sharpener, if we finished our assignment for that class we would start to work on an assignment from another class, etc. It was an earned freedom, but looking back, also maybe, kind of ridiculous?
We were active student leaders and involved in a variety of extracurriculars!
Here’s an odd detail of my popularity and familiarity with the administrative staff of my high school: On game days, when I would wear the tight blue jeans as part of my Bell Guard outfit, when this Vice Principal said “howdy,” as he passed me in the hall, he would slap my ass. And he wasn’t the only adult at my school to do so! And not always just a slap; sometimes a friendly squeeze!
Okay, that’s technically a lie. I signed up for choir my senior year because I wanted to better my chances at getting roles in musicals. I could not sing. My pitch was off. I could not read sheet music. If I got lucky and hit the correct note, I was flat when I should have been sharp. But because I was a senior, I was placed into the a cappella class, where everyone else had a few years of experience. At the beginning of each period, the choir teacher would place the students on the stands, starting with the best bass, the best tenor, the best alto, the best soprano, and then fill the remaining space with the rest of the class. Except for those who had failing grades and couldn’t compete. And me. The teacher didn’t explain. There was no acknowledgement that I was given no instruction. On the second day, I tried to get his attention, but it was loud in the choir room, everyone was singing! On the third day, I stayed after class and suggested I skip the competition and during school performances I could lip sync. He smiled real big and shook my hand and said, “thank you for understanding.”
You may think to yourself that means less than I think it does, that you didn’t know who in your high school played football, so why should this teacher, to which I could reply, “Tell me you are not from Texas, without saying you are not from Texas.”
Beyond raising awareness of the restricted section of the library to our biology class, who already knew about it because I had been complaining about it an hour before, our actions did not change anything. As far as I know, the library still has an eighteen and over section, full of books prohibited for presumably sill reasons. A protest action from that time in my life that was a bit more admirable and a better example of protesting on principle, that is - objecting to something even if it’s not a policy that directly affects you but is something you think wrong, is when the school board planned to make a rule prohibiting facial hair and afros and other “distracting hair styles,” In solidarity, I did make and wear a t-shirt that read “I have the right to an education and a beard.” We ranted during our school radio show (which was just a CD player, microphone, and speaker in the cafeteria). And I and a handful of friends did sit through an interminably long city meeting in solidarity with our friend who had signed up to speak (student voices were scheduled at the end). Our city-meeting speaking friend was our only friend who could actually grow a beard at the time.