Laura Ingalls Wilder's name removed from children's book award over racism issues

A division of the American Library Association (ALA), board of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), has unanimously voted to remove Laura Ingalls Wilder's name from a major children’s book award, according to the Associated Press in Chicago. The reason: ALA was concerned about how Wilder portrayed African Americans and Native Americans in her works.
The decision to change the name was made in a meeting in New Orleans on June 23. And so, now the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal is renamed as the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.
Upon changing the award's name over racism concerns, the association said that Wilder “includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC’s core values". The ALSC said Wilder’s work continued to be published and read but her “legacy is complex” and “not universally embraced”, reads a report by the Associated Press in Chicago.
Born in 1867, Wilder is famous for her eightLittle House on the Prairie novels which were published between 1932 to 1943. Wilder mainly wrote about life in the American west. The first award by the association was given to Wilder in 1954.
Commenting on Wilder's works and her treatment to people of different race, British broadcaster Samira Ahmed wrote for The Guardian in 2010: “Wilder has a special status in American culture despite posthumous allegations of racism. The Osage nation, according to biographer Pamela Smith Hill, still condemns her work, which was based on their eviction... The novels are full of phrases that are unacceptable today. Even in her own lifetime Wilder apologised for her thoughtlessness and amended a line in Little House on the Prairie that said Kansas had ‘no people, only Indians’. It now reads, ‘no settlers, only Indians’.”