According to this in-depth article written by Lee V. Gaines at Illinois Public Media, Danville Correctional Facility has removed “more than 200 books” from their library. Here’s a list of all the titles removed from the facility, many of which are relating to race and African-American history and culture.
Here’s comment from Rep. Carol Ammons from the article:
“I said, ‘Are they removing all black books?’ I was totally taken aback by the list of books, and what their objection is to the books,” Ammons said. Reading about the history of slavery, post-emancipation and the black experience in the United States “is an important part of developing an African-American person that is whole in society. So, if you take that away from them, you have, in essence, denied their very nature, their humanity… you can’t tell them that they don’t deserve to know what happened to them,” she added.
…
“We’ve not learned, obviously, in any real concrete way, why this has happened,” Ammons said. “And until we get to the root cause, I can’t propose the actual solution.”
We have reached out to Danville Correctional Facility for further comment.
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