I don’t like being told what to read any more than I like being told what to do. As a welcome break from my assigned academic readings this past spring, I decided to only read banned books. Two of the most banned books, in fact, of the last century.

Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is one of the most banned, most painfully beautiful books of all time. Published in 1969, during the time of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, Angelou’s childhood autobiography poetically explores Black female censorship through her painful experiences of societal racism and sexual assault. For nearly two decades, however, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings remained at the top of U.S. school curriculum banned lists. Parents pushing for a ban often stated that the book was both "sexually explicit" and "anti-white" and not appropriate for young readers. 

Some of what may have been regarded as anti-white was the social stereotyping effects of racial segregation, stemming from the innocent curiosity and imagination of a Black child. Angelou described the segregation in Stamps, Arkansas as “so complete” that most Black children didn’t really know what “whites” looked like. She recounted not believing that white people were “really real” as a child and described them as not folks but as others or “whitefolks” and “strange pale creatures that lived in their alien unlife.” As a child Angelou recalls that she believed that “whitefolks” could not be people because “their feet were too small, their skin too white and see-throughy” and that they walked “on their heels like horses.” Rather than taking Angelou’s stereotypical childhood impressions of white people to be offensive, there is an opportunity to learn (at any age) of this particular effect of racial segregation from her unique, insider perspective. 

Those who would disregard the childhood sexual assaults described within I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as “sexually explicit” have perhaps missed another important learning opportunity. Angelou writes that her attacker told her that if she screamed, he would kill her and if she told anyone, he would kill her little brother. From the innocent perspective of a child trying to comprehend the traumatic event, Angelou writes “I could tell he meant what he said. I couldn’t understand why he wanted to kill my brother. Neither of us had done anything to him.” Her description of this painful childhood experience then becomes so explicit that it is hard to read, “And then. Then there was the pain. A breaking and entering when even the senses are torn apart.” Angelou then switches from the child victim to adult survivor perspective in her attempt to make personal sense of this unthinkable violation. “The act of rape on an eight-year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel can’t. The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator cannot”. Although Angelou describes being both molested and raped by her stepfather as being explicitly painful and terrifying there was really nothing sexual about it.

Due to steady parental and educator pushback against its ban, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has become one of the most-taught non-fiction books in U.S. schools. As one of the first autobiographies to explicitly address childhood sexual assault, Angelou encouraged open conversation about this often difficult and taboo topic. She strongly believed that as children are commonly victims of sexual offences, they should have the opportunity to learn about and discuss them within the safety of their schools. With regards to this unimaginable crime, Angelou truly felt that “the unspeakable is far more dangerous when left unspoken.” 

‍

D.H. Lawrence’s, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, is another of the most banned, most passionately beautiful books of all time. Published in 1928, Lawrence’s last and most-controversial book explored sexual morality and societal classism. The story features Constance or Lady Chatterley, an unhappily married, childless woman of privilege with socialist empathies, who resides at Wragby Estate in England with her high bred, industrialist-minded and paraplegic husband, Clifford. 

Lady C, as it became known for short, was plagued with publication problems from the start. The first typist hired by Lawrence, refused to type past chapter six because she found it to be too indecent. Due to its controversial content, neither British or American publishers could legally produce or sell Lady C, so Lawrence arranged for an Italian publisher to distribute a limited first edition of one thousand signed copies by subscription only. There were again publishing problems and delays, however, in that some of the Italian typists were not fluent in English and made many errors; they also ran out of the expensive, hand-made paper used in the first edition. Nonetheless, Lawrence was pleased with the final result, which featured mulberry coloured paper boards, the Lawrence phoenix, and the author’s signature.

Once released, however, the publication problems of Lady C only became worse by way of suppression and exploitation. U.S. postal authorities held the books back and then sold them for inflated prices. In England, police began searching the homes of Lawrence’s friends in order to confiscate the publication. Other works by Lawrence, such as a book of poems entitled Pansies, were even seized and held by Scotland Yard on suspicion of being pornographic. Between 1928–29, in New York alone, five pirated publications of Lady C were produced, from which Lawrence received nothing, as its copyright was not secured internationally. Some pirates even offered him royalties if he’d authorize their plagiarised reproductions of his work, which he declined. Although urged to release an authorized, albeit censored edition, in England, an unexpurgated and inexpensive pocket-sized edition was finally released in Paris by Lawrence in 1929. He died of tuberculosis at the age of only 44 a year later.

Lawrence demonstrated Lady Chatterley’s sexual disappointment and desire as she reflects on her youthful affairs and becomes painfully conscious of her unhappiness in her marriage. She regrets having taken her first lovers for granted, “That healthy boy with his fresh, clumsy sensuality that she had then been so scornful of!” and misses their thrilling, albeit inexperienced, sexuality, “Where would she find it now?”.

Lawrence described Lady Chatterley’s or Mellors’ explicit beliefs about warm-hearted sex and love as being critical to a good life and successful relationships. He expressed his belief in the need for genuine intimacy, “I believe in being warm-hearted. I especially believe in being warm-hearted in love, in fucking with a warm heart.” Mellors believed that the lack of warmth in sex and love was largest to blame for societal discontent, “I believe if men could fuck with warm hearts, and the women take it warm-heartedly, everything would come alright. It’s all the cold-hearted fucking that is death and idiocy.” 

I’m so glad that I decided to read these two most banned, most beautiful books. Through Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I was further validated regarding the social misunderstandings of childhood sexual assault as well as better informed of the social stereotyping effects of racial segregation. Angelou’s painful experiences were certainly not easy to read about, even as an adult, but I felt honoured to have had the opportunity to learn from them. Through Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I not only gained insight into the sociological conflicts between classes, but I also developed empathy into the complexity of human sexuality and morality. Perhaps some of Lawrence’s words may have made me, a happily married woman and mother blush, but I truly found there to be nothing obscene about his passionate love story.