Today in History
What went down and why you should care.
mar 25 Learn More Howl Put on Trial
On this day in 1955, United States Customs seized over five hundred copies of Howl by Allen Ginsberg, claiming that it was obscene, and the poem was put on trial. Well, not the poem itself. Nobody placed a stack of papers on the witness stand and tried to question them (although there's an episode of Law & Order we'd love to see). Rather, publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti and bookstore manager Shig Murao stood trial on obscenity charges. Literary experts testified on the poem's behalf, and ultimately the judge ruled that the poem may have been bursting with sex and drugs, but it wasn't obscene.
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