From underground roots to community hubs, new book documents the history of Black-owned bookstores

The first Black-owned bookstore we know of opened in 1843 in New York. Now, there are more than a hundred around the country.

Since the early days of their establishment, Black-owned bookstores have taken on a new level of cultural significance. In many cases, they’re not just places to buy books – they’re also spaces of activism, resistance and community. 

This history is the subject of a new book called “Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore” by Char Adams. She’s a reporter with NBC News and she’s been following Black-owned bookstores for years.

She’ll also be speaking about her work at this year’s Texas Book Festival and joined the Texas Standard to discuss the book. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Char Adams

Texas Standard: Your book opens focusing on a gentleman named David Ruggles. Tell us about David Ruggles. Who was he and why begin with him? 

Char Adams: He is the first known owner of a Black-owned bookstore. He opened his shop, and his bookstore was only part of his work, right?

He was a major figure in the Underground Railroad. He actually helped to bring Frederick Douglass to freedom. And so he and his bookstore kind of set the foundation for what a Black-owned bookstore is.

When did the idea to write this book first come to you? Was there an event or something that sparked your special interest in this? 

Yeah, so back in 2018, I read an article in The Atlantic by Joshua Clark Davis, and he basically highlighted how Black-owned bookstores were targeted by the FBI back in the 1960s.

And so I read that story and I was so intrigued and I was so fascinated and I wanted to know more. And so that is how this book came about: Wanting to know people’s business.  

That must have been a really challenging process of doing the research and gathering those stories. How did you go about doing that? 

I track down every currently living bookseller from the 1960s I could find. And I’ve worked as a journalist now for over a decade. And so it was just basically putting all of those skills to use, right?

So it was tracking down booksellers – like researching, right? So it was a lot of work. It took a lot of time, but it was my passion.

I was gonna say, this really sounds like a passion for this project. 

I truly say that, like, my passion carried me through many long nights of writing and researching.  

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If you go to booksellers and ask for a recommendation, they’re quick to give you a long list and it’s my understanding that you’ve talked with a lot of Black booksellers about their own recommendations. What were some of the top titles that you heard about? 

So that was a fun project, right? It was fun. And so the top books were, of course, the biography of Malcolm X and Assata Shakur. And I believe that there are a few books by James Baldwin as well. 

What about the number of Black-owned bookstores in Texas? Do you have any sense of how many are here in the Lone Star State and how it might compare with other states? 

Oh, man. So I know that here in Dallas and Fort Worth there are two and a third that will be reopening. There is a Black Pearl down in Austin and I believe that there are three in Houston.

So I would say in total there are, or will be, about seven in Texas, which is amazing because most Black-owned bookstores, they kind of have the title of being the sole bookstore in their state or their city. And so it’s such a blessing to have seven here in Texas.

I think that the state that has the most is a tie between New York and California.

What do you see as the future of Black-owned bookstores in the U.S.? Do you suspect that they will become more relevant in the future or how do you see that playing out?

I have actually talked to booksellers about this, and people are passionate. So I feel like we will see more Black-owned bookstores. But I think that the focus will be on doing more than just selling books, right?

So I think we’ll see more Black-owned bookstores that are also cafes and co-working spaces. So I think that the idea of a quote “Black bookstore and more” will be the future here.

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