In Black-Owned, the journalist chronicles the history of Black-owned bookstores in America, charting their centuries of intersection with political movements and economic changes.
Were there any stories about bookstores or the publishing industry that took you by surprise?
When I was reporting on the story of Eso Won Books in California, I was surprised by how much conflict they had with writers and with different booksellers. Some booksellers didn’t like how Eso Won ran their business and saw them as this big competition. Certain writers were mad that they wouldn’t stock their books. The store’s fame and influence opened them up to quite a bit of conflict from their own communities, and I was not prepared for that.
Who has been doing the work of collecting archival material about Black-owned bookstores in the U.S.?
There is a man named Troy Johnson, who founded the African American Literature Book Club. His was the first website to track Black-owned bookstores and to publish a list of them. We’ve had people like him, plus, at a lot of the bookstores I talk about in the book, like Marcus Books, the owners have served as collectors, in a way. They’ve taken on the responsibility of maintaining their records and keeping news articles and pictures. They’ve pretty much been their own historians.
Your book also touches on Black indie publishers, like Black Classic Press and Third World Press. Do you think a deeper treatment is needed on the work that they’ve been doing over the years?
I would say yes. When I started to write this book, I had to scour old news articles, old videos, and talk to people. I had to do a lot of legwork to paint a holistic picture. And that’s pretty much the same when it comes to Black publishing. I did find a good amount written
on Third World Press and Black Classic Press and Kassahun Checole, but their stories were often told as tangential asides to Black bookstores and different political movements. Publishers like Haki R. Madhubuti and Paul Coates have also been telling their own stories. But I do think that there is a major need for a full-length book about Black publishing.
Something you return to a few times in the book is that new shops are opening fairly regularly. Did that make it hard knowing when to end the narrative?
There is a list in my book of every Black bookstore in the country. Since I stopped writing earlier this year, at least three new Black bookstores have opened! I’m sad that I can’t keep putting more into the book, but I am going to house the full updated list on my website. I’m hoping that can be a good resource for people.
