'Huckleberry Finn' wins a first round in St. Louis Park

Ken Gilbert read the story of Huckleberry Finn in the late 1960s in a segregated black North Carolina school, but he doesn't remember much about Huck's adventures and the book's status as an American classic.

What he does remember is class discussions of the n-word. Mark Twain used it over and over.

"Why were there so many usages of the same word?" he said. "We never got to the story line. It was the racial issue."

When daughter Nia was assigned to read it in her 10th-grade honors class, his memories of a racially volatile childhood came surging back. Now Gilbert and his wife, Sylvia, are reviving a century-old debate by asking St. Louis Park High School to remove the novel from the required-reading list.

So far their request has been declined, but an appeal is planned.

While controversy over the book dates back to the 1880s, debate over use of the n-word by schools, theaters and even black entertainers continues to make news.

For Gilbert, a 52-year-old small-business owner, there's not much question: While no word should be banned entirely, he said, he believes it should not be tolerated in informal conversation or popular entertainment. For blacks, he said, "There's no word that brings you to a lower level. ... It makes children feel less than equal in the classroom."

He does not seek to ban the book from the school. "I don't care if all of America reads the book," he said, but he doesn't want it to be required classroom reading.

A 12-member committee of teachers, parents, a community member and a school administrator reviewed the Gilberts' request. According to a letter to parents from Principal Robert Laney, the group decided that although some of the novel's language is offensive, "the literary value of the book outweighed the negative aspect of the language employed."

The Gilberts will appeal to Superintendent Debra Bowers.

As word of the challenge to the book spread at school, some students created posters saying, "Save Huck Finn" and began a website objecting to the Gilberts' request.

Patrick Zahner, a junior, read the book last year after having read Twain's "Tom Sawyer." He described the request to remove "Huckleberry Finn" as "misguided" because Twain uses racist characters "to parody racism." Similar arguments could be used "to take many other books out of the curriculum," he said.

Rosalyn Korst, head of the high school's language arts department, said that in her 34 years at St. Louis Park she could not recall a previous effort to remove a title from the curriculum, although some parents have asked that their children be allowed to read alternative books.

Korst said the Twain book's value in the curriculum rests partly on "learning to fight racism in a safe environment. ... It's a good learning experience."

She said Twain's uses of dialects, satire and irony are important teaching tools and illustrate why he is considered "the authentic voice of the American people."

Laney said students may request an alternative assignment. Nia Gilbert and another student read "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd as an alternative to "Huckleberry Finn."

But Gilbert said such a request can make a student feel ostracized from the rest of the class. He said his daughter has taken heat at school because of the controversy. Nia Gilbert declined to be interviewed.

Ken Gilbert said he is a former member of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in North Carolina. The party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, Calif., had a reputation for championing black power --sometimes militantly -- and its leaders espoused socialistic solutions to problems of poverty.

Gilbert said he joined at age 10 because the Panthers were viewed in his neighborhood as a community service organization and as protection during a racially volatile time. He said that the group offered havens from potential violence and that it once saved him and his brother from threatened harm by robed members of the Ku Klux Klan.

He said that he "wholeheartedly" disagrees with the school committee's recommendation, and that if his appeal to Bowers fails he will suggest that his daughter leave the St. Louis Park school system. He predicted that because she knows he wants what's best for her, "She will accept my recommendation."

Twain revisited

The Gilberts' objections echo those over many generations since Twain's book was published in 1885. It was the fifth-most-challenged book during the 1990s, according to a list published by the American Library Association. It has slipped from that rank since then.

One recent dustup occurred early this year in the Lakeville district.

Barbara Knudsen, Lakeville's director of teaching and learning services, said two teachers are testing a new three-week unit, which includes a variety of Twain's works but not "Huckleberry Finn." The goal is to avoid the controversy over the offensive language but to continue to teach the nature of satire and irony. Except for those units, the book is still used in Lakeville's curriculum.

Not just Twain

Other books occasionally have stirred controversies in Minnesota schools. In 1997 the Sauk Rapids-Rice school board voted to keep John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" in its curriculum despite a parent's complaint that it was racist.

The same year, the Anoka-Hennepin district rejected a mother's request that some of the "Goosebumps" series of scary stories be banned.

The Richfield school district did remove "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou from its ninth-grade reading list, also in 1997.

Audrey Betcher, past president of the Minnesota Library Association and library director in Rochester, said, "The really important point is that just because [a book] is controversial doesn't mean it's bad." Presented in the proper historical context, it can "teach critical-thinking skills," she said.

The Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis is staging a play adapted from "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Elissa Adams, director of new play development, said there was "a great deal of discussion" over whether to use the racial slur. It was not included in the production, she said, because the play focuses on action and characters and not on the full social context and satire of the original novel.

Dan Wascoe • 612-673-4436