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Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

It's a controversy that comes around like clockwork every few years.

The school district in Virginia has made national news after pulling copies of the books Tequila Mockingbird.

To Kill a Mockingbird are banned from Acomac County Public Schools.

Classic novel is on the chopping block, the Biloxi Mississippi School District, removing to kill a mocking bird from a junior high reading list.

Most recently, it happened in the public school district of Biloxi, Mississippi, which removed the Pulitzer Prize winning book from eighthgrade reading list because, quote, there is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable.

That's what school board vice president, Kenny Holloway, told the son Harold. He didn't specify

which passages. But the history of schools having a problem with the book over its language

goes back decades.

In fact, Harper Lee's classic novel has inspired strong feelings for as long as it's been in print.

It was sex that caused the first big uproar in 1966, just a few years after the book was published.

The school board of Hanover County, Virginia, banned the book

as immoral literature because the plot centers on an accusation of rape. Lee did not respond kindly.

She sent the Richmond Times dispatch a letter and included a $10 donation to enroll the Hanover

County School Board in first grade. She said their critiques, quote,

makes me wonder if any of its members can read.

Later controversies tended to focus on a different element of the book,

its language on race,

specifically the N-word,

which appears nearly 50 times throughout the book,

almost always in dialogue.

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