'Huck Finn' a masterpiece - or an insult"Huckleberry Finn", first published in 1885, tells the journey of a 13-year-old white boy. and a runaway slave down the Mississippi River on a raft through the antebellum South. What's wrong with the book, Clark, Phair and numerous other critics said, is the use of the infamous "n" word — not once, not a few times, but more than 200 times. “It's not just a word,” said Clark, her granddaughter's guardian. Both are African Americans. "It carries with it the blood of our ancestors. They were called that while they were being lynched; they were called that while they were hanging from the great magnolia tree." That word, in the history of America, has always been a degrading word in towards African Americans. When they were brought to America, they were never considered human beings, and this word was something to call something that was not human. I think it's completely unconscionable that any school would think that's acceptable." Clark, who was president of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at Renton High last year, took up the fight against "Huckleberry Finn" after Phair reported in April that his 11th… “I was humiliated and horrified that this book was being taught, when it contains the word ‘nigger’ 215 times,” Phair said Before the language arts students turned to the chapter 1 of "Huckleberry Finn," their teacher, Hilari Anderson, led the class in a two-week discussion of the controversy surrounding the book and its terminology. The class watched videotapes that addressed the issue and studied the definition of the word established the ground rules for its inclusion in the classroom. Clark was present at one of those lessons. “I couldn't believe what I was hearing,” he said. “That in 2003 the teacher was saying, 'Today we're going to discuss the 'use of the word 'nigger'. ""Huckleberry Finn" is listed among the books approved by the Renton School District for assignment in the 11th grade language arts course, and Anderson has chosen to teach it in each of his six years at Renton High. He talks about his " passion" for Twain's novel. "In terms of contemporary issues, I think it opens the door to a conversation that we just don't have, in terms of who we are and where we come from and what the meaning of our language means and why children in hallways use that word so frequently," he said.