From Wikipedia:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book by Mark Twain, first
published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in
February 1885. Considered as one of the Great American Novels, the
work is among the first in major American literature to be written
in the vernacular, characterized by local color regionalism. It is
told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of
Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer
Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective).
The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places
along the Mississippi River. Satirizing a Southern antebellum
society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work
was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing
look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.
The work has been popular with readers since its publication and is
taken as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It has also been
the continued object of study by serious literary critics. It was
criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became
even more controversial in the 20th century because of its
perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use
of the racial slur "nigger".
Much modern scholarship of Huckleberry Finn has focused on its
treatment of race. Many Twain scholars have argued that the book,
by humanizing Jim and exposing the fallacies of the racist
assumptions of slavery, is an attack on racism. Others have argued
that the book falls short on this score, especially in its
depiction of Jim. According to Professor Stephen Railton of the
University of Virginia, Twain was unable to fully rise above the
stereotypes of black people that white readers of his era expected
and enjoyed, and therefore resorted to minstrel show-style comedy
to provide humor at Jim's expense, and ended up confirming rather
than challenging late-19th century racist stereotypes.
In one instance, the controversy caused a drastically altered
interpretation of the text: In 1955, CBS tried to avoid
controversial material in a televised version of the book, by
deleting all mention of slavery and having a white actor play
Jim.
Because of this controversy over whether Huckleberry Finn is racist
or anti-racist, and because the word "nigger" is frequently used in
the novel, many have questioned the appropriateness of teaching the
book in the U.S. public school system—this questioning of the
word “nigger” best illustrated by a school
administrator of Virginia in 1982 calling the novel the "most
grotesque example of racism I’ve ever seen in my life".
According to the American Library Association, Huckleberry Finn was
the fifth most frequently challenged book in the United States
during the 1990s.
A 2011 edition of the book, published by NewSouth Books, replaced
the word "nigger" with "slave" (although being incorrectly
addressed to a freed man) and did not use the term "Injun". The
initiative to update the book was led by Mark Twain scholar Alan
Gribben, who said the change was made to better express Twain's
ideas in the 21st century. Gribben said he hoped the edition would
be more friendly for use in classrooms, rather than have the work
banned outright from classroom reading lists due to its
language.
“Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just
because a baby can't chew it. “ - Mark
Twain
