After learning that the Hanover County School Board planned to pull To Kill a Mockingbird from all their school libraries, citing immorality, Harper Lee composed the following letter to the Richmond News Leader, along with a small monetary contribution:
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January 1966
Editor, The News Leader:
Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board's activities, and what I've heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.
Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that "To Kill a Mockingbird" spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is 'immoral' has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.
I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.
Harper Lee
4 comments:
Hehehehe. Great bit. Go Harper.
I love this. In addition to being a blow against censorship, it's a wonderfully written letter. (I wonder if there's a collection of these somewhere.)
There are a collection of letters written by writers and other famous people somewhere online, but I can't remember where. I'm going to search for it.
There are a collection of letters written by writers and other famous people somewhere online, but I can't remember where. I'm going to search for it.
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