Read It While You Can
by Peter Koch
It’s no secret that knowledge is power. Historically, repressive regimes have always stifled the possessors and distributors of knowledge—the professors, priests, poets, journalists and authors—first. And while the kind of wholesale censorship favored in countries like North Korea and Burma may seem far off in today’s America, censorship is still a problem. Last year, for instance, Reporters Without Borders announced that the US fell 20 places on the world press freedom index to 44th. The American Library Association reports that the number of books being challenged, and subsequently banned, is increasing yearly. Even today, many of America’s greatest novels are banned from libraries and school curricula around the country, including Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Wright’s Native Son, among many others. That’s why the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, along with UB’s Humanities Institute, is hosting “Read It While You Can: Challenging the New Censorship and Celebrating Free Speech.” The afternoon will begin at 1pm with a screening of Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now broadcast about the McCarthy years. Following will be a panel discussion examining the “new censorship” and readings by local authors, including Julian Montague, Chris Fritton, Ted Pelton, Kari Winter and Hershini Bhana Young.
Saturday, May 13 at 1pm. Central Branch, B&ECPL, 1 Lafayette Square (858-8900). Free.
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