Knox County Schools has pulled Alex Haley's Roots from its library shelves, marking another casualty of Tennessee's aggressive book-removal campaign under state law. The decision came down in May after a review committee flagged content in the novel's 84th chapter as falling outside age-appropriate boundaries under the state's 2022 measure.
Roots, first published in 1976, stands as one of the most influential works on the transatlantic slave trade ever written. The novel traces Kunta Kinte's brutal removal from Gambia and enslavement in North America through six generations of his descendants up to Haley himself. It won the Pulitzer Prize and spawned a landmark television adaptation that became a cultural touchstone, reshaping how Americans understood slavery and African American history.
The removal adds weight to Tennessee's emerging position as a national leader in book banning. The state now ranks third in the country with more than 1,600 banned titles as of October 2025, trailing only Texas and Florida. Knox County alone has removed 124 books since early 2025, including The Handmaid's Tale, Water for Elephants, and The Kite Runner.
The state's Age-Appropriate Materials Act, passed in 2022, has become the legal mechanism driving the removals. The law requires schools to maintain public library inventories and establish review procedures for challenged materials. Titles can be pulled if deemed to contain nudity, sexual abuse, sexual content, or excessive violence. The statute does not allow broader literary or historical significance to factor into the decision.
Knox County Schools spokesperson Carly Harrington acknowledged the novel's cultural weight in a statement but framed the removal as compulsory. "The decision made to remove Roots from school libraries is in no way a commentary on the literary or cultural value of the novel, but the result of adherence to state law," she said. She noted that the passage under review had only recently triggered a committee examination and that broader themes could not be weighed under the law's constraints.
The school district clarified that Roots can still be taught in classrooms. The ban affects only its availability on library shelves.
Notably, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported that the same review committee had previously examined an excerpt from Roots and did not recommend removal. The district did not explain what prompted the second examination or what had changed.
Bill Haley, Alex Haley's grandson and co-founder of the Inherited Roots Project, called the decision "incredibly short-sighted and without merit." He invoked his grandfather's philosophy about cross-cultural understanding and questioned the logic of banning Roots while similar classics like Huckleberry Finn remain on shelves.
Tasslyn Magnusson, a senior adviser at PEN America, criticized the removal as educationally damaging. "Roots provides a powerful entry point into what the slave trade meant, what it was like to be a slave and what it was like to be part of a culture that had slavery and the impact of that," she said. She pointed out that the novel accomplished this understanding "without being exploitative or demeaning, but in a holistic and real fashion."
Magnusson also warned against the practice of isolating book passages to justify bans. "We're closing off places for students to understand stories on a new level and evaluate the world on their own," she said.
Alex Haley's connection to Tennessee runs deep. He spent formative years in the state and later made Knoxville his home. A statue commemorates him in East Knoxville, and his childhood home in Henning now operates as a museum, where he is buried.
Author James Rodriguez: "Banning a book that fundamentally changed how America reckons with its past is not neutral compliance with law, it's a choice to silence that reckoning."
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