Heinrich Heine, the noted German author of the 19th century, remarked in his play Almansor upon the connection between censorship and the prosecution of unpopular view: “Where they burn books, they will also burn human beings [eventually].” (Sure enough, his books were among those burned in a public ceremony in Nazi Germany) There were no book burnings in the United States, at least not technically, but on several occasions book censors got very close. One of those occasions was after the release of Allen Ginsburg’s Howl and Other Poems.

On this day, March 25, a 1,000-book shipment of Howl arrived in San Francisco from London, en route to the City Lights bookstore that published the work under their own imprint. Customs officials confiscated 520 copies on grounds of obscenity.

Ginsberg anticipated the move. He was already in touch with the American Civil Liberties Union about a possible obscenity court case arising from his work. That case came about a year later when the owner of City Lights was arrested and charged with distributing obscene materials. Ultimately free speech won out, as the judge concluded Howl had “redeeming social value”, a key test for any work deemed to be obscene.