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Slavery

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The fight over banning books

Between 2020 and 2022, the number of book titles that have been banned in U.S. libraries and schools spiked more than 1,100%, to more than 2,500, while activists in 37 states have challenged school districts for offering non-fiction and fiction books that discuss race and racism, slavery, sex and gender identity. Correspondent Martha Teichner talks with opposing forces on the reading battlefield today, from the founders of the activist group Moms for Liberty, to library officials, a teacher removed from her classroom for giving her students access to banned books, and cartoonist Art Spiegelman, whose Holocaust-themed graphic novel "Maus" has been targeted by book banners.

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One couple's remarkable escape from slavery

In 1848 Ellen Craft, an enslaved woman in Macon, Georgia, feared that her father – who was her White enslaver – would claim any child she bore as his property. And so, she and her husband, also enslaved, embarked on a remarkable ruse: Fleeing the South, she masqueraded as a male White slaveowner accompanied by "his" slave. Correspondent Mark Whitaker talks with Ilyon Woo, author of "Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom," and with Peggy Preacely, the couple's great-great-granddaughter.

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