Banned Books Week was launched in the 1980s, a time of increased challenges, organized protests, and the Island Trees School District v. 
Pico (1982) Supreme Court case, which ruled that school officials can’t ban books in libraries simply because of their content.
In 1982, the American Booksellers Association (ABA) invited Judith Krug, American Library Association (ALA) Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), to join a new initiative called Banned Books Week, along with the National Association of College Stores. The initiative took off. Institutions and stores hosted read-outs, and window displays morphed into literary graveyards or mysterious collections of brown-bagged books. Major news outlets such as PBS and the New York Times covered the event, and mayors and governors issued proclamations affirming the week.
ALA is currently part of a national coalition to promote Banned Books Week (see https://bannedbooksweek.org/), along with 14 other contributors and sponsors. led by the tireless efforts of Judith Krug, until her unexpected death in 2009. Her legacy lives on in the Freedom to Read Foundation’s Judith F. Krug Memorial Fund, a grant awarded to nonprofits to host Banned Books Week events.
Today, Banned Books Week coverage by mainstream media reaches an estimated 2.8 billion readers, and more than 90,000 publishing industry and library subscribers. The Banned Books page remains one of the top two most popular pages on the ALA website.
Adapted from the American Library Association, History of Banned Books Week, http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/banned
"Censorship occurs when individuals or groups try to prevent others from saying, printing, or depicting words and images.
Censors seek to limit freedom of thought and expression by restricting spoken words, printed matter, symbolic messages, freedom of association, books, art, music, movies, television programs, and Internet sites. When the government engages in censorship, First Amendment freedoms are implicated."
Reference: Censorship from the First Amendment Encyclopedia, hosted at Middle Tennessee University
The short video below, Introduction to Censorship, was created as part of a video series for the Intellectual Freedom Round Table by a group of ALA's 2019 Emerging Leaders: Nicky Andrews, Jade Geary, Cyndi Hamann, Kacy Helwick and Jess Newman.
Visit ALA's Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) at http://www.ala.org/rt/ifrt/
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