From The Trussville Tribune staff reports
The classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” is being yanked from a Mississippi school district’s reading list at Biloxi Junior High School.
An image from the film version of “To Kill A Mockingbird.”
Biloxi Public School District administrators reportedly pulled the novel from the 8th-grade curriculum this week in response to complaints that some of the book’s language makes some “uncomfortable.”
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alabama writer Harper Lee deals with racial inequality in a small town in the 1950s.
A message on the school’s website says “To Kill A Mockingbird” teaches students that compassion and empathy don’t depend upon race or education. Holloway says other books can teach the same lessons.
The book remains in Biloxi school libraries, according to The Sun Herald newspaper.
Lee based the book on an event that happened near her hometown of Monroeville in the 1930s.
Recently the Alabama city as looked into developing new tourist attractions based on its association with the book. Until recently a play based on the novel was performed annually outside the old Monroe County Courthouse.
86 Comments
Tere Vermillion Sizemore
Terrible.
Sheila Johnson Sutton
What a terrible shame.
Randall Ray Pearcy
Shame on them
Sherry Mcranie
Idiots!
Fayne Love Howle
Message is more important than the language which, by the way, was typical for the era in which the setting of the book takes place.
Kay Hicks
It took longer that I thought. But it is a shame….Just like Disney’s South of the South. Who makes these decisions that offends me? Oh I forgot it was because of language!
Jennifer Richards
Some kids curse more than adults and having sex. You know fifth graders having babies now…..this is a great book.
Sharon Bender Barnes
Faye Palumbo
That is stupid….. That is an excellent book. It just shows the time period and how people were. It also teaches about love and justice.
The past is the past no way to erase it.
They are concerned about language? I don’t remember any bad words…. Like S. O. B., MFer, B**ch, F**k or anything like the words I hear today from kids.
Find something worthy to worry about. This is ridiculous……
Sandi Hill Talley
Ridiculous!! Message is very important. Hopefully parents will be sure their children read this book!
Leslie Mauldin Mayo
Paula Bumpas
This is absolutely ridiculous,
Connie Echols Alexander
Shame on these stupid people.So sad.
Heidi Schaffer Charette
It’s a shame that people are so narrow minded!!!….. and now we are told what our children can read. I hope that parents stand up for their child’s right to read this book.
PL Johnson
JFK said it all………….we need to have the discomfort of thought.
Suzy Maples Rutledge
PE class is uncomfortable too. And algebra.
Magen Nelson
*eyeroll* This should be a REQUIRED read. Maybe the world would be a better place if we all read/reread TKAM.
Kathy Forsyth Willcutt
So would they rather have a book that teaches students compassion and empathy are dependent on race and education??? How stupid!
Beth Shelton Clanton
Shame
William Kennedy
Morons.
Heather Woyak
WHAT?! This is a classic!!
Gordon Rush
I understand
Deborah Mason Branham
Are you serious
Susan Gill
Sad. That is such a classic book. One of my all time favorites.
Rheanna Needham Poe
I was one of the kids that didn’t like to read and skimmed through most books on the reading list. Not this book it had me from the beginning and I actually read the entire thing. Was one of my favorites off all the reading list in school.
Angelica Headley
My kids have read and and the littles will read it…. please stop pushing your agenda on what people find offensive off on my kids….
Tammy McCown
It is supposed to be uncomfortable. Racism isn’t a garden party.
Melissa Thompson
If they are taking it off of the reading list because they are uncomfortable, then they missed the point of the entire book. It’s okay for 8th graders to be uncomfortable when talking about racism because hopefully they are learning something that they will take away with them.
Diana Dimon Dwyer
The educational system of today is messed up. I worry about what it’s teaching my grandchildren.
Sharon Mcclung Bahm
Crying shame.
Toni Graves Whitten
If these same people were to read some of their kids phone messages they might be even more uncomfortable. Wake up America!
Terri Phillips
Political correctness comes to Trussville. This just opens the door for more.
Karla Harrelson Gealow
You have got to be kidding me!!!
Nieshel Pronounced Kneeshul
This is a school district in Mississippi. **sigh**
Terri Phillips
Nieshel Pronounced Kneeshul sorry my bad. I didn’t read the fine print.
Vickie Williams Perry
So sad, it’s a classic…
Brent Edwards
This is sad. Only a hand full of books grabbed me as a child and made me realize even though I had a hard time reading and was in the LD classes I could and did enjoy reading! This book and My Side of the Mountain, Where the Red Fern Grows, Jake, Old Man and the Sea. All great books if you have a son that struggle enjoying reading. Thankful my mother was so persistent into getting these books into my hands.
Laurel Stanek
So if it makes one “uncomfortable” that it is now missing from the reading list, can it be put back?
Tammy McCown
Where the Red Fern Grows. I still cry.
Trish Lawley
Omg this crap is going too far!! Just because you remove everything to do with racism, you can’t change the past!! So why keep pushing and pushing to have everything taken down or away when it’s still going to be talked about. Just because you take down monuments and remove books and such, doesn’t mean it will erase the past.
Dave Williams
Here we go again… Why now? Nobody complaining about it 30+ years ago! Power trip.
Kathy Mims Clements
Gone with the wind and now this…two classics ! Next will be the Wizard of Oz!
Lucy Jackson
Home school
Patricia Gabler
I thought that a school was a place for learning. What so said is the language used in these classic book are some what tame compared to the music these kids listen to.
Julia Bullock
Chris Wood this is Crazy! I will never forget reading this book in your class!
Gene Startley
But listening to rap language is OK? Who’s the fools here?
Melissa Perry Coffman
It’s a classic
Jackie Amatangelo Butler Bass
Stupid!
Lenore Yarbrough Como
I. Can’t. Even.
Michael Stanley
Next thing you know the Marxist educational system will be burning books.
Denise Hall
Absolutely crazy. Mine will still read it.
Jennifer Chinnis Lawley
It wasn’t fine print, it was the actual article.
Gail Smith Wright
Song of the South was banned years ago because it had slavery in story. You probably can’t find the movie anywhere. Such a shame.
Gail Smith Wright
If I understand correctly, they only took it off the required reading list. It is still available in library and bookstores.
Tina Thorn George
Fahrenheit 451! Someone better start memorizing this classic before it’s erased from history!
Tina Thorn George
Yep…Fahrenheit 451
Sherina Evins
Read it as an adult and it was and is a good book. Everyone should relax and stop trying to make everything so “non-existent and pretty” life is just not like that.
Alicia Thorn Chambless
This mirrors the Nazis burning books in the 1930’s of authors like Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy, and Jack London… The list goes on.
The blind writer Helen Keller published an Open Letter to German Students: ‘You may burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas those books contain have passed through millions of channels and will go on.’”
It’s getting out of hand. What’s next?
Laura Long Goolsby
It’s meant to be uncomfortable. The whole story is horrifically “uncomfortable”. My oldest read it in school and my little will read it too, regardless of any school list or library.
Kelli Wilkinson Phillipson
Just because the school system says it will no longer be read as part of the school curriculum doesn’t mean you can’t have your children read it outside of school.
Rocky Rockwell
Burning books next?
Barbara Gream
Oh my, this is a classic. No matter what they do, they cannot erase our history!!
Dustin Knowles
#garbage
What’s next, Huck Finn?
Rick Beasley
Absolutely ridiculous
Dean Wise
More stupidity
Matthew Norman
You have GOT to be damn kidding me
Ronda Odom
No!!!! This is a classic book the moral of the story is so worth the read! Atticus Finch is a hero! Sad sad sad to read this! My favorite book ever! Go Set A Watchman is my second favorite book!
Ron Hughes
Horse shit
Michelle Childres
Jeff Odeneal
Jeff Odeneal
Yay. Lets burn some books too.
Lisa Cohron
Banning books is a dangerous step toward socialism.
Stacey Smoke
Right!
Cathy Bean
This book is a classic teaching the history of the Great Depression and race relations bar none the theme of innocence is one of the best in literature students usually enjoy it immensely… this is wrong! Save our classic literature…
Cathy Runels
I wonder about so many of these nuts!
Matt Mookie Moor
Oh good greif! This politically correct bullshit is getting out of hand and fast.
Kristi Barber
So stupid!!!
Teresa Kilburn Loggins
Why cant they just leave the classics alone!! Soon, there will nothing left of our world!
Tammy McCown
Actually, it has always been controversial since it was released. People always try to destroy anything that may make their world view uncomfortable.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/rundown/to-kill-a-mockingbird-remains-among-top-banned-classical-novels
Kevin Roper
God forbid someone may sometime ever experience being “uncomfortable”. Good luck in the real world, snowflake.
Kellie Crittenden Yarbrough
this is ridiculous
Louis Ronan
Whats next burning them ??
Fayne Love Howle
The slavery, language, attitudes and STORYLINE of these novels is important in order for us ( in the present) to understand and place ourselves in the character’s place ( the past)in order to… key word coming here… learn!
Felicia Schlafer
Wow. I guess The Color Purple will replace Mockingbird. That was part of my Advanced English reading in tenth grade.
Felicia Schlafer
Raising snowflakes!
Dave Williams
People can turn the page, it’s easy to do! Tolerance is nearly dead now.
Pamela Loudon
Uncle Tom’s Cabin has language that made me very uncomfortable but it is a great book that makes you think, feel, and hurt for people. Our kids need these works to understand the world we live in today