There’s power in the pages!
For centuries, Black-owned bookstores have done more than sell books—they’ve sparked movements, protected truth, and offered refuge. Now, for the first time, their full legacy is being told in a single, powerful volume. NBC News reporter Char Adams will release her debut book, Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore, the first full-length history chronicling the role these cultural institutions have played in Black political life in the United States, Penguin Random House reports.
Adams takes readers on a journey from 1834, when the country’s first Black-owned bookstore was opened by an abolitionist, to the present day, where a new generation of Black activists and artists are revitalizing the radical bookstore tradition. Through meticulous reporting and a cinematic storytelling style, she reveals how these spaces have served as engines of resistance from the abolitionist era to the Civil Rights Movement, from the Black Power era to the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Black-Owned” is not just a historical account—it’s a celebration of the bookstores that doubled as organizing hubs, intellectual sanctuaries, and cultural safe spaces. Malcolm X once gave speeches on the steps of the National Memorial African Book Store in Harlem, a location also known as “Speakers Corner.” Bookstores like it were both targets of surveillance by the FBI and places where icons like Langston Hughes and Eartha Kitt gathered to celebrate Black art. Maya Angelou became the face of National Black Bookstore Week, further cementing the connection between Black literature and Black liberation.
Adams, whose reporting on race and identity has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Oprah Daily, Teen Vogue, and Vice, brings both journalistic rigor and personal passion to this project. A Philadelphia native now based in Texas, she sees the book as both a chronicle and a call to action. In the face of book bans, censorship, and political division, Adams reminds us that Black bookstores remain more vital than ever.
Today, shops like Semicolon Bookstore in Chicago, Uncle Bobbie’s in Philadelphia, and Loyalty Bookstore in Washington, D.C., continue the legacy. And with artists like rapper Noname launching projects like the Radical Hood Library, the spirit of radical literacy is being reimagined for a new generation.
Black-Owned is a story of joy, resistance, and cultural preservation. In honoring these spaces, Char Adams has not only written a book; she has made history herself. Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore is available now for pre-order.
Cover photo: Reporter Char Adams to Release First Full-Length Book Chronicling the History of Black-Owned Bookstores in the U.S./Photo credit: JerSean Golatt/Penguin Random House