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bookstores

2 mins read

Uplifting Children’s Books Written By Black Authors

In recent years, more Black authors have received prestigious awards and earned spots on bestseller lists. Although there is still much work to be done, I am grateful that more Black authors are getting the exposure that they deserve.

Here is a selection of children’s books by Black authors available on Amazon. And because these recommendations are just the tip of the iceberg, we’ll keep adding to this list.

ABC I Love Me by Miriam Muhammad

ABC I Love Me takes Black children along for a journey of self love, confidence, and adventure while teaching young learners positive affirmations for each letter of the alphabet. This book encourages children to accept their unique qualities and promotes positive self-esteem and a healthy lifestyle.

Dream Big Little One by Vashti Harrison

Black Authors

Featuring 18 trailblazing black women in American history, “Dream Big, Little One” is the irresistible board book adaptation of Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. The leaders in this book may be little, but they all did something big and amazing, inspiring generations to come.

Emi’s Curly Coily, Cotton Candy Hair by Tina Olajide

Emi is a creative 7-year-old girl with a BIG imagination. In this story, Emi shares a positive message about her Curly, Coily, Cotton Candy Hair and what she likes most about it. The vibrant illustrations and fun story teach basic natural hair care techniques and tips in a playful and memorable way.

I Believe I Can by Grace Byers

Black Authors

From the #1 New York Times bestselling creators of “I Am Enough” comes an empowering follow-up that celebrates every child’s limitless potential. “I Believe I Can” is an affirmation for boys and girls of every background to love and believe in themselves.

I’m A Little King: Positive Affirmations for Black and Brown Boys by Sharifa Brown

Black Authors

For far too long, little Black and Brown boys have been made to feel inferior and unimportant. “I’m a Little King” is a short, rhythmic, and beautifully illustrated children’s book for ages 2-7 aimed at improving the self-esteem and self-confidence of Black and Brown boys. 

 

1 min read

She Owns The First Black Owned Bookstore Focused On Afro Futurism and Science Fiction

Isis Asare is the founder of Sistah SciFi, the first Black owned bookstore solely focused on science fiction and fantasy.

In this interview, we discuss her choice to focus on science fiction. We also discuss Afro-futurism, how it shows up in our daily lives and how Black people can create opportunities using technology.

Don’t forget to LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE to the channel!

Tony O. Lawson


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1 min read

Black Owned Online Bookstores That You Should Know

As social distancing measures keep people home, independent Black owned bookstores are among the many small businesses impacted by government-mandated shutdowns.

However, there are several Black owned online bookstores that would love to provide you with some literature to get you through your stay indoors.

Sistah Scifi

Uncle Bobbies

Mahogany Books

Eso Won Books

Harriet’s Bookshop

The Lit Bar

Brave and Kind Books

DTR 360 Books

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA3-jFwpK6w/

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-XKF84nz_s/

Key Bookstore

Semicolon Bookstore

Hakim’s Bookstore

Ashay By The Bay

AfriWare Books

Source Booksellers

 

-Tony O. Lawson

Related: 28 Black Owned Bookstores You Should Know


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4 mins read

The FBI’s Forgotten War on Black-Owned Bookstores

In the spring of 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover announced to his agents that COINTELPRO, the counter-intelligence program established in 1956 to combat communists, should focus on preventing the rise of a “Black ‘messiah’” who sought to “unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement.”

bookstores
Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (D-Harlem), right, gestures emphatically as he speaks outside the National Memorial African Bookstore in the Harlem section of New York, 1965. AP

The program, Hoover insisted, should target figures as ideologically diverse as the Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), Martin Luther King Jr., and Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad.

Just a few months later, in October 1968, Hoover penned another memo warning of the urgent menace of a growing Black Power movement, but this time the director focused on the unlikeliest of public enemies: black independent booksellers.

In a one-page directive, Hoover noted with alarm a recent “increase in the establishment of black extremist bookstores which represent propaganda outlets for revolutionary and hate publications and culture centers for extremism.”

The director ordered each Bureau office to “locate and identify black extremist and/or African-type bookstores in its territory and open separate discreet investigations on each to determine if it is extremist in nature.”

Each investigation was to “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.”

Perhaps most disturbing, Hoover wanted the Bureau to convince African American citizens (presumably with pay or through extortion) to spy on these stores by posing as sympathetic customers or activists.

“Investigations should be instituted on new stores when opened and you should recognize the excellent target these stores represent for penetration by racial sources,” he ordered.

Hoover, in short, expected agents to adopt the ruthless tactics of espionage and falsification they deployed against civil-rights and Black Power activists, and now use them against black-owned bookstores.

Hoover’s memo offers us a troubling glimpse of a forgotten dimension of COINTELPRO, one that has escaped notice for decades: the FBI’s war on black-owned bookstores.

At the height of the Black Power movement, the FBI conducted investigations of such black booksellers as Lewis Michaux and Una Mulzac in New York City, Paul Coates in Baltimore (the father of The Atlantic national correspondent Ta-Nehisi Coates), Dawud Hakim and Bill Crawford in Philadelphia, Alfred and Bernice Ligon in Los Angeles, and the owners of the Sundiata bookstore in Denver.

And this list is almost certainly far from complete because most FBI documents pertaining to currently living booksellers aren’t available to researchers through the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The FBI appears to have wound down its surveillance of black bookstores by the middle of the 1970s, in the wake of Hoover’s death and the formal conclusion of COINTELPRO. As the Black Power movement declined in the late 1970s, so did black bookstores, and their numbers significantly dwindled by the start of the ‘80s (before experiencing a resurgence in the early 1990s). Looking back, it’s worth asking if the Bureau’s investigations may have undermined the viability of these black-owned businesses, creating undue stress for owners already struggling to make ends meet and scaring away customers who wanted to avoid any encounters with law-enforcement officials.

Read more at The Atlantic
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