Minnesota’s solely Black-owned bookstore has discovered an area of its personal on College Avenue West. With renovation beginning in February, founder Dionne Sims expects the store to open its doorways in Halfway in late summer time 2022.
Councilmember Mitra Jalali’s workplace awarded Sims’ Black Garnet Books with a $100,000 Neighborhood Gross sales Tax Revitalization (STAR) grant to renovate and open the first-ever bodily spot, after the shop operated for a yr primarily as a pop-up at Merci Tattoo.
Discovering a location that checked all of the containers—near public transit, ADA accessible, had a parking zone and the best dimension—posed a problem to Sims, who has been scouting out bookstore spots since January. “The STAR grant actually cemented my potential to be in that house and to have the ability to afford to be in that house,” Sims says. The location can be on the bottom flooring of the Hamline Station flats, throughout from the Halfway light-rail station and Goal.
In addition to the Black-owned bookmobile Babycakes Book Stack and the Mind’s Eye comedian guide retailer in Burnsville, Sims introduced through Twitter in June 2020 that Minnesota didn’t have a Black-owned, brick-and-mortar bookstore. “I feel that’s my new dream,” Sims wrote. The dream became an instantaneous actuality after her tweet went viral and garnered widespread group assist alongside a profitable GoFundMe marketing campaign.
“For everybody who’s been ready for there to be a Black-owned bookstore house that they will go to and hand around in, I simply preserve it on the forefront of my thoughts that this bookstore isn’t only for myself. It’s not slightly pet venture that I’m doing. For lots of people, it has that means and emotion behind it,” Sims mentioned.
Together with promoting books, Black Garnet Books began a guide drive in November to donate copies of The 1619 Mission to Twin Cities colleges. The guide drive has since donated over 700+ copies, changing into essentially the most profitable Bookshop.org 1619 guide drive within the nation. “The best factor I’ve executed this yr is get a guide about slavery and American colonialism into the arms of lots of of individuals within the metropolis,” Sims says. The drive ends January 31. Readers can donate here.
The bookstore will inventory grownup and younger grownup modern literature written by Black and racially numerous authors. Whereas renovation goes underway, readers can assist Black Garnet Books by shopping for from its Bookshop and website.
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