Review by Booklist Review
Since the early nineteenth century, Black bookstores have played a major role in community-building, political education, activism, and Black pride. Adams chronicles the courageous, determined, and tenacious people who ran legendary bookstores across the country. The desire of store owners to create spaces for Black education and growth has been countered by the determination of white politicians and publishers to snuff this out. David Ruggles, who started the first Black bookstore in 1834, was threatened with lynching and enslavement for selling abolitionist literature; his store was eventually torched. Black bookstores during the civil rights era were regularly surveilled by Hoover's FBI as "cultural centers for extremism." Under Nixon, the IRS hassled Black bookstores he deemed "ideological, militant, subversive, or radical organizations." Yet Black bookstores continued to respond to the needs of students, families, activists, and organizers. Despite overt racism, gentrification, and the online revolution, the Black bookstore will never vanish. As Maya Angelou observed: "Bookstores owned by African-American merchants have helped us to survive and thrive with some passion, some compassion, some humor and style."
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Former NBC News journalist Adams debuts with an illuminating history of America's Black-owned bookstores. She begins with Black abolitionist David Ruggles, whose Tribeca shop, opened in 1834, established a template that many Black booksellers would follow: prioritizing community and politics. From there Adams tracks how different store owners' political convictions shaped their approach to art and activism over time; along the way, she makes professional associations and book distribution into the stuff of riveting drama. In discussing radical bookshops that emerged in the 1960s, for example, she outlines how they were spied on by COINTELPRO operatives (in at least one case, booksellers will be paranoid to hear, by a store "regular"). Later, in addressing existential challenges facing the Los Angeles bookstore Eso Won in the 1990s, she hints at disagreements within the city's Black community over which of its Black-owned bookstores was more legitimate, as some stores turned away from politics and embraced a more commercial mindset. She also touches on blockbuster Black authors, from W.E.B. DuBois to Angela Davis, and the history of the Black publishing industry. A final focus on a new generation of Black bookstore owners--along with a long list of shops all over the U.S.--makes for an invigorating conclusion. This will hold immense appeal for bibliophiles. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
NBC News reporter Adams's debut book is a rich and well-researched history of Black-owned bookstores in the U.S. She begins with the story of the United States' first Black-owned bookstore, founded in the 1830s in New York City by abolitionist David Ruggles, who published and sold literature denouncing enslavement until his shop was destroyed by a white mob. Adams goes on to share the stories, contributions, and tribulations of other Black booksellers. She also reveals the racist battles waged against Black-owned bookstores, often implicating local police and the FBI. Along the way, she celebrates Black bookstores past and present, including Vaughn's Bookstore in Detroit; Drum and Spear and Mahogany Books, both in Washington, DC; Pan-African Connection in Dallas; Eso Won in Los Angeles; Turning Page Bookshop in Goose Creek, SC; and the Hue-Man Experience in Denver and NYC's Harlem. This pioneering study features exemplary research, deep explication of historical context, and engaging human-interest narratives as Adams makes the case that Black-owned bookstores are particularly resilient because they are community-oriented. VERDICT An excellent history that will make a fine addition to public and university libraries.--Laura Ellis
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A history of Black bookstores as loci of activism, community-building, and education. Of the "third places" in social life, Black communities have famously formed around barbershops and beauty salons, churches, and civic organizations. Overlooked has been the role of Black-owned bookstores, which, as journalist-turned-author Adams has it, "have always been at the center of the resistance." Adams begins, in that vein, with David Ruggles, whose Manhattan storefront sold pamphlets and books recounting the evils of slavery and espousing the abolitionist cause--and Ruggles himself, two years after he founded his bookstore in 1834, "had developed a reputation as a charismatic abolitionist who could inspire almost any crowd to action." Ruggles turned his store into a place where Black people could "gather, read, and learn--all acts that were still largely forbidden in many parts of the country and, therefore, inherently radical." Not surprisingly, Ruggles' home soon became a stop on the Underground Railroad, helping some 300 enslaved people to escape to freedom--one of them, significantly, Frederick Douglass. Adams' next subject is a young man named Lewis Michaux, who sold books from a cart before opening his National Memorial African Book Store in Harlem in 1933. It became a pioneering center for the early Black Nationalist movement. Taking her story into the militant era of the 1960s and '70s, Adams profiles bookstore owners such as Charlie Cobb, whose Drum and Spear bookshop was a gathering point for activists in Washington, and who, among other things, paid special attention to books for young readers, an impetus for many other bookstores of that time and to this day. Black-owned bookstores--Adams reckons there are about 130 today--face challenges ranging from gentrification and discriminatory financing to competition from online vendors. But, Adams writes, this reflects the Black American condition in general, "pushing through adversity, holding on to values, and bending without breaking." An enlightening history for students of the Black experience and readers of books about books. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
