For centuries race has been used as a justification for discrimination, forced dispossession, disenfranchisement, slavery, and genocide. Discussing this, particularly when it has relevance to here and now, can make people uncomfortable. Listed here are books that some have tried to ban for this reason, as well as books with race as a major theme that have been the target of ban attempts for other stated reasons.
| Title | Author | First published | Recent incident |
|---|---|---|---|
| His Name Is George Floyd | Robert Samuels et al. | 2022 | 2023 |
| Between the World and Me | Ta-Nehisi Coates | 2015 | 2023 |
| The Rabbits' Wedding | Garth Williams | 1958 | 1959 |
| New Kid | Jerry Craft | 2019 | 2021 |
| The 1619 Project | Nikole Hannah-Jones (ed.) | 2019 | 2020 |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin | Harriet Beecher Stowe | 1852 | 1857 |
| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | 1885 | 1998 |
| Beloved | Toni Morrison | 1987 | 2013 |
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Maya Angelou | 1969 | 2025 |
| The Bluest Eye | Toni Morrison | 1970 | 2022 |
Edited by John Mark Ockerbloom (onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu), who is solely responsible for its content.
Read Banned Books is a featured exhibit of The Online Books Page and is subject to its copyrights and licenses.