New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones attacked efforts to ban books in the U.S. during an interview on “The Late Show” on Wednesday.
Hannah-Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for The 1619 Project, which examines the history and effects of slavery in America. The project has faced bans and attempted bans in at least 14 states since its publication in 2019.
Efforts to restrict access to The 1619 Project come in a year when there have been 681 attempts to bar access to books among 1,651 unique titles from January to August, the American Library Association reported.
Hannah-Jones said many of the people behind efforts to ban The 1619 Project hadn’t even read it, yet they still use the book to stoke division.
“No matter how you feel about it, a free society doesn’t ban books. A free society does not do that,” Hannah-Jones said.
Watch Stephen Colbert’s interview with Hannah-Jones below: