Incarcerated people are often prevented from receiving books for a variety reasons, including the condition of the book, if it was improperly addressed, or if it is on a banned list. And while many books are understandably prohibited for safety reasons, others, like The Color Purple and Homesteading, raise some questions.
Thankfully, public pressure can reverse bans. In 2018, the New York Times wrote about The New Jim Crow showing up on prisons' banned book lists across the country (one of PBC's own was interviewed for the story!). A week later, in a response to a letter from the North Carolina A.C.L.U., NC prisons dropped the ban.
Nevertheless, the following books (and many more) remain banned, as of February 2023:
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Where the Crawdads Sing
The Burning: Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921
Coding for Beginners
Hand's Up Don't Shoot
Life Drawing
Orange Is the New Black
