KNOXVILLE — Knox County Schools removed Alex Haley’s novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family from its school libraries in May 2026. The decision was made in compliance with Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act, which requires schools to evaluate library content for age appropriateness.
Carly Harrington, spokesperson for Knox County Schools, said: “As a district, we recognize the immense cultural and historical significance of Alex Haley’s Roots to our nation, to Tennessee, and particularly to the county seat of Knoxville. The decision made to remove ‘Roots’ from school libraries is in no way a commentary on the literary or cultural value of the novel, but the result of adherence to state law.” Harrington specified that the removal was due to content in the novel’s 84th chapter, which includes a depiction of the sexual assault of an enslaved person by a white plantation owner, deemed not “age appropriate” under the state law.
Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act was passed in 2022 and amended in 2024. The law prohibits library materials containing sexual content, sexual abuse, nudity, or “excessive violence.” It requires schools to maintain a public list of library materials and establish a review policy based on feedback from parents, guardians, school employees, or students. Under this law, banned books like Roots may still be taught in classrooms but cannot remain in school library circulating collections.
As of May 2026, Knox County Schools has banned 124 books. Among them are Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.
Alex Haley lived in and around Knoxville, Tennessee, for long periods of his life. His novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family was published in 1976 and won a special Pulitzer Prize. The book was adapted into a miniseries in 1977. A statue of Haley stands in Morningside Park and was the largest public statue of an African American in the country when unveiled in 1988.
Statewide, Tennessee banned at least 1,600 books between July 2024 and June 2025. According to a 2025 PEN America report, 23,000 book bans have been enacted across 45 states and 451 public school districts since 2021.