Lecture: Celebrating Black Bookstores

Author Katie Mitchell will give a talk based on her new book Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores (Penguin Random House, with a foreword by Nikki Giovanni), a tribute to Black bookstores around the U.S.

Lauded in The New York Times, Washington Post, and NPR’s "Morning Edition," Mitchell’s book Prose to the People contains profiles and essays celebrating Black bookstores’ histories, cultures, communities, and impacts on activism. Among the contributing journalists, activists, authors, academics, and poets are New York Times bestselling authors Kiese Laymon, Rio Cortez, and Pearl Cleage. They explore these bookstores' role as vital pillars of Black communities throughout the diaspora. Mitchell will focus her June 13 talk on “The Right to Read from Ruggles to Revolution: The Legacy of Black Bookstores in Civil Rights,” exploring the pivotal role of Black bookstores in shaping the Civil Rights Movement. She will trace their impact from David Ruggles' pioneering New York establishment in the 1830s to the activism hubs of the 1960s and beyond.

Mitchell, a storyteller and bookseller, lives, works, and writes in Atlanta, Georgia. Her online and pop-up Black bookstore, Good Books, has been featured in The New York Times, NBC, NPR, PBS, and many other outlets. She is a Dorothy Porter Wesley fellow. Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores is her debut.

Prose to the People will be available for sale and signing at this event.

Registration

If you are a Grolier Club member, please register yourself and your guests via the Club website. Do not register via Eventbrite.

Support

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Accessibility

An ADA-compliant lift from street level to the lobby is available to anyone with mobility issues. All desk staff should be ready and able to assist you in operating the lift, with or without advance notice.

A “T-Coil” assisted listening system is available to anyone attending a lecture in the Exhibition Hall. Visitors with hearing aids should turn their devices to the “T” setting in order to access the system; visitors without hearing aids may request a “loop receiver” with earphones.

Environment

The temperature and humidity in the exhibition hall are tightly controlled for the sake of the valuable items on display, and this may cause the room to feel chilly, particularly in warmer weather, to those coming in from outside. Members and visitors are advised to bring a light wrap when visiting an exhibition, or attending an event in the hall.