“FISH
IN THE RIVER OF KNOWLEDGE”
Celebrate Your Freedom to Read
Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s
opinion
even if that
opinion might be considered unorthodox or
unpopular and stresses the importance
of ensuring the availability
of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read
them.
Sponsored
by: the American Library Association along with the American Booksellers Association,
American
Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, Association of American Publishers,
American
Society of
Journalists and Authors and National Association of College Stores. It is also
endorsed by
the Center for the
Book in the Library of Congress.
“If
there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may
not
prohibit
the expression of an idea simply because
society finds the idea itself offensive or
disagreeable.”--- Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, in Texas
v. Johnson
“Restriction of free thought
and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one
un-American
act that could most easily defeat us.” ---Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
“Congress Shall Make No Law
Respecting an Establishment of Religion, or Prohibiting the Free
Exercise
Thereof; or Abridging the Freedom of Speech, or of the Press; or the Right of the People
Peaceably to
Assemble, and To Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances.”
---First Amendment to the Constitution |
