The Republican-led Tennessee legislature on Wednesday passed a bill that would require public school librarians to submit to the state a list of book titles for approval, as a GOP lawmaker suggested burning books that are deemed inappropriate.
During a contentious debate on the bill in the House, Democratic state Rep. John Ray Clemmons asked Republican state Rep. Jerry Sexton what he would do with the books that he and the state consider inappropriate for libraries.
“You going to put them in the street? Light them on fire? Where are they going?” Clemmons asked.
I don’t have a clue, but I would burn them,” Sexton replied.
Book burning is emblematic of authoritarian regimes, and it was notably carried out in Nazi Germany. One of the most prominent examples in history occurred on May 10, 1933, when students in German universities set fire to more than 25,000 books that were deemed “un-German,” according to the U.S. Holocaust Museum. The action came after some 40,000 people gathered to hear Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, deliver an address: “No to decadence and moral corruption,” according to the museum.