Saturday, September 24, 2005

Monticello Book Burning - retronews

I came across this picture on the web the other day, quite by accident, and it really startled me, primarily because I lived in Monticello, Minnesota, in 1982 and this triggered a memory of adults discussing the event (I was fourteen). No one I know was there, but Monticello was a town of around 5,000 including the farmers, so there wasn't much that went on that everyone didn't know about. I wish I had remembered this when there was that whole ruckus about cancelling Lisa Westberg Peters' visit to discuss her book (and evolution) this last May. I suppose this was on the Big Lake side of the Mississippi as that's where the fundamentalist churches and church schools are, but I can't be certain, and the Monti Times doesn't have online articles going that far back. About the only other place I could find a reference on line was an Augusta State University paper that was comparing it to the 1933 German book burnings. I've submitted an email to People for the American Way (and the Monti Times) to see if they have further information, so if I get any backstory I'll update. But in the meantime, here's the picture.



BOOK AND RECORD BURNING, MONTICELLO, MINNESOTA
Organized by three fundamentalist ministers, 1982
Courtesy People for the American Way

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The copyright for the book you are talking about is 2003! So I don't see how you could have witnessed book burnings for this book in 1982! How is this possible? It worries me that so much on the Internet is pure erroneous fabrication.

Scooter said...

Um....because the book burning was in 1982. Peters book was in 2003. And no one says that was the specific book that was burned. The connection is they were both in Monticello. I don't even see a spot in my article where I say I witnessed it. To the contrary, I say I did not. You applied the logic to the timeline yourself and then adopted your pet theory that the internet is a problem. It worries me that so many people on the internet can't read without engaging in pure erroneous mental fabrication.