Mark Twain wrote "The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer" in 1876. In one chapter, Aunt Sally was worried because Tom arrived home late from a riverboat trip, and Tom explained: "We were held up because we ran aground, but the main reason was because we blowed out a cylinder head." "Good gracious, said Aunt Sally...anybody hurt?" "No ma'am" said Tom...killed a nigger." "Well it's lucky, replied Aunt Sally, because sometimes people do get hurt!" Of course in today's printings of Tom Sawyer, the "N" word as been replaced with "slave". Hal
The original copies are preserved and will never be burned because that's how people felt about African-Americans in 1876. Hal
Trying to hide or destroy the past, distorting and covering up things - all harmful. The goal seems to be distraction and destruction instead of compromise and solutions. A short, well written preface explaining that a book was written before everyone in the U S had civil rights, that words have not been altered in any way for the sole purpose of expressing the author's characters exactly as they would have spoken and behaved at this time in history and preserving the authenticity of this piece of fiction - one way to address the issue.
Hal: "Of course in today's printings of Tom Sawyer, the "N" word as been replaced with "slave"." The only publisher so far doing this is Alabama-based publisher NewSouth Books, I find that interesting. Personally, I object strongly to censorship. The school kids reading the full version of Mark Twain are in high school. I don't know if this version will be the one read throughout the country. Mark Twain was a satirist and should be read that way. If not, his message is lost.
(Sigh): It was a different time, a different place. Cultural mores change, sometimes for good, sometimes for worse. That's inevitable. A fool tries to condemn someone from the distant past who simply adhered to the "times". Those times have changed, but the "non-bigoted" (read that still actually bigoted) have not, and will not. Frank
Rather than change the language of the book, I would take it out of the high schools and substitute another of Twain's work, i.e. 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,' just to give the kids an intro to this great author & satirist and make Huck Finn a college or personal selection. A good, skilled teacher is truly needed, one with great control in the classroom, to give Huck justice. I can see the language causing strife among the younger students. Maybe not all are ready these days. It has to be drilled into their heads that Mark Twain was condemning the language by his use of it. Takes a level of sophistication to understand this novel the way it was intended.
Although Connecticut Yankee us not thought to be his best work, it is also one that students could appreciate. I always said that if High Schoolers read Shakespeare in original form, not Bowdlerized, and understood what was being said, he would be the most popular "author" in high schools. Writers like Twain and others should be considered in the times in which they were living and writing. Jane Austen is another when considering the roles of women and how they have changed.