Title: Maya Angelou – the most banned author in the US
Headings: Maya Angelou – the most banned author in the US
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Maya Angelou – the most banned author in the US

Content: Many times I’ve been called the most banned,” Angelou said, referring to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which was nominated for a National Book Award and remained on The New York Times paperback bestseller list for two years. “ Many times my books are banned by people who never read two sentences,” she explained. Stopping young people reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is why the conservative Parents Against Bad Books in Schools group in Fairfax, Virginia, was formed. Claiming it encouraged “profanity” and was filled with “descriptions of drug abuse, sexually explicit conduct and torture”, the group succeeded in having Angelou’s book banned from a Virginia school district. Book banners were successful elsewhere in the US’s deep South. In Alabama, four members of the State Textbook Committee, which decides what books are allowed in local schools, asked that the book be rejected because, they said, it preached “bitterness and hatred against whites”. And, in Poolesville, Maryland, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was removed from the local high school reading list because, protestors charged, it was “likely to corrupt minors”. But Maya Angelou rejected this and showed she would not be intimidated or silenced. In a 2013 interview, she said: “ Let me tell so much truth, I want to tell the truth in my work.