A Tennessee school district has banned the Alex Haley novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, one of the most influential works about the transatlantic slave industry, first published in 1976.
The novel tells the story of six generations of Kunta Kinte’s descendants in the US to Haley himself. The novel won the Pulitzer prize, and was later adapted into a mini-series, which became a cultural phenomena, transforming public understanding of slavery and African American identity
Knox county schools (KCS) took that step under a 2022 state law that has disappeared hundreds of titles from school libraries and alarmed advocates of free expression.
The so-called Age-Appropriate Materials Act brought Tennessee to become the third-highest state of book-banners. Under the law, schools were required to have a public list of books in their systems, along with a policy for books to be reviewed by parents, guardians, students or school employees for appropriateness.
The law prohibited books that were found to contain nudity, sexual abuse, sexual content or “excessive violence.” Under review, Roots was found by committee to be “age inappropriate.” The book can no longer be available on library shelves, but its material can still be taught in classrooms.
Other titles banned by KCS under the act – of which there are now 124 – since early 2025 include The Handmaid’s Tale, Water for Elephants and The Kite Runner.
Alex Haley spent some of his younger years in Tennessee and later returned to live in Knoxville. There is a statue of him in East Knoxville.