It isn’t a secret that books have a history of spreading unwanted information, messages, and propaganda. However, books are also a means to amplify the voices and visions of the oppressed, marginalized, and disenfranchised. Unfortunately, there is currently a movement of those in power who have no interest in amplifying silenced voices but to silence them even more.

The dystopian novel “1984” by George Orwell, which was published in 1949, has been one of the most frequently banned books in history. The novel, ironically, criticizes totalitarianism and suppression of free speech.

Titles that have been banned and received threats of being expunged also include those that address themes of survival, such as “Nineteen Minutes,” a novel that had received the most bans the year it was released. The novel is about a school shooting and the repercussions afterward. BBC interviewed the author of “Nineteen Minutes,” Jodi Picoult, who said, ”It’s not a badge of honour to be banned.” Picoult continued, “The loss of free speech is a very, very slippery slope.”

Book banning in America goes as far back as 1637. According to Gutman Library, “Book banning in the United States and Beyond,” Puritan authorities outlawed Thomas Morton's New English Canaan because it was viewed as a scathing and heretical indictment of Puritan traditions and authority. In the LitHub article, “The History (and Present) of Banning Books in America," Amy Brady notes how the anti-slavery novel, “Uncle Tom's Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe is cited by many historians as the first book in the U.S. to be banned nationwide.

Books that may mention human anatomy regardless of the rest of their content, have been banned. In 2022, in Dearborn, Michigan, the far-right conservative group Moms for Liberty sparked an effort among parents to ban books that referenced human anatomy, ignoring how much these books have helped students struggling with their identities.

Freedom to Read published an article “Bannings and Burnings in History,” which lists a timeline of book bans dating back as early as 259 BC to 2019. A notable book that is on the list is Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which imagines the U.S. being taken over by a fundamentalist theocracy called The Republic of Gilead. The American Library Association reported that Atwood’s novel was the 88th most frequently banned book from 2000 to 2009 and the 37th most frequently banned book from 1990 to 1999 in the U.S.

Currently, books about survival and fighting injustice, “harm” or “offense,” based on race and gender are under threat to be banned, silenced, and abolished. However, it is these exact texts that inspire readers to see a larger perspective of the world around them and even inspire one to write their own story to share with the world. It is these texts of literature and stories of overcoming struggles that educate those who read them and comfort those who wish to do the same. Such books can inspire the freedoms of choice and expression in a world that silences those who may not have the means to speak out and be heard by any other means.

The Bill of Rights—which is supposed to guarantee the freedom of and from religion, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of the press—is what inspired the very creation of this country. Censorship threatens those rights and so threatens the basis of this country and its claim to be “the land of the free.”