Head to a mainstream bookstore and you’ll usually on see texts by well-known Black authors like Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead, and Octavia Butler promoted during Black history month — or when a book blows up because Oprah recommended it. 

'It’s our responsibility to write our history, write our narrative, and to teach and cultivate our youth to love themselves.'

Head to an independent Black-owned bookstore and you’ll definitely find those same authors on the shelves. But instead of a token display table in February, these spaces are wall-to-wall Black books, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They’re the go-to spots for purchasing work by Black internationally celebrated authors as well as the writers white people are less familiar with — folks like Eric Jerome Dickey, Sister Soulja, Jawanza Kunjufu, Denene Millner, and Kiara Imani. Fiction, nonfiction, Black perspectives on mental health and healing trauma, or gender inequality, and the effects of systemic racism  — you want it, they’ve got it, or they’ll order it for you. 

But along with being spaces where Blackness is centered and literary voices are welcomed and valued, the 127 Black-owned independent book stores across the United States are about more than the latest bestseller. Included are Legacy Books and Eye See Me in the St. Louis area.

They’re vital beacons of liberation and hope — places where we discover ourselves, gain a greater appreciation for our culture, and learn.

“It’s more costly to deal with a society being uneducated than educated,” says Malik Muhammad, the co-founder and owner of Malik Books in Los Angeles. 

“We have to be very selective in what is being educated because — and this is why critical race theory exists — two things can’t occupy the same space at the same time. It’s either this or it’s that. We live in a society where white is ‘beautiful’ and is Back is ‘evil.’ We have to change that narrative. It’s our responsibility to write our history, write our narrative, and to teach and cultivate our youth to love themselves and be true to themselves.”

Indeed, since opening the doors to Malik Books in 1990, Muhammad says he remains dedicated to being a Black bookstore owner despite the challenges because he believes Black people deserve access to “having a knowledge of self.” 

In 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered the FBI to identify and study Black bookstores because he feared their ability to progress the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.  

“Determine the identities of the owners; whether it is a front for any group or foreign interest; whether individuals affiliated with the store engage in extremist activities; the number, type, and source of books and material on sale; the store’s financial condition; its clientele; and whether it is used as a headquarters or meeting place,” Hoover demanded.

Blanche Richardson, whose parents Julian and Ray Richardson founded Marcus Books, told PBS Newshour that her mom and dad “would really scour the country looking for books about Black people. At that time, very few Black people were being published. My parents saw the need for Black people to have a source of information about themselves.” 

Blanche Richardson, who runs the bookstore now, said the bookstore was “a meeting place for many organizations, but also a place that appreciated you, welcomed you, did not follow you around the store with mirrors on the walls, you know?” 

James Baldwin said, “The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.” And as we’ve seen in the response to “The 1619 Project” by journalist Nikole Hannah Jones, white institutions find truth from Black folk to be threatening to the makeshift ‘truths’ they teach and promote.

Over the years, Muhammad has watched thousands of people’s lives change because they discovered an inspiring book in his store. He believes books have the power to influence thought and action, and that being able to read the right books can set you on a path toward fulfillment and success. 

“Everyone has a shelf in their mind of the collection of books that they have read,” Muhammad says, “and those books influence your thoughts and the decisions that you’ve made. We like to curate and select books that are positive and uplifting, but in the process, we address real issues.

Liz Dwyer is Word In Black managing director.

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