For years, Marcus Books in Oakland was the place to go for readers looking for authors like James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Founded in 1960, the store is the oldest black-owned bookstore in the country.
Then came the coronavirus and along with it, no customers, no profits and bleak prospects.
“I figured we could last maybe six months on what we had at the time,” said co-owner Blanche Richardson, who turned to an online fundraiser to help keep her family’s business afloat.
But after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, sparking national outrage following the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, protests led to a wave of non-black people seeking to educate themselves on racism and the black experience.
“Business is overwhelmingly good right now,” Richardson said. Up by 150%, in fact, with hundreds of people signing up for waiting lists for popular titles like “White Fragility,” “How to Be an Anti-Racist” and “Between the World and Me.” The store now gets hundreds of calls and online orders a day.
Richardson says she is not sure why this police killing is different from the many that have come before.
“Certainly surprised at the response, the worldwide response,” she said. “I don’t know what the tipping point was there, because certainly we’ve seen videos of black people being abused by the police before, going way back to - I mean Rodney King was videotaped. Nothing changed because of that. I would have to ask some white people, ‘what’s different for you?’ Because for black people it’s pretty much the same old thing.”
Still, she remains optimistic that this time things are different.
“Of course we’re very hopeful that people are now interested in making change… there’s just a determination there, like ‘oh my god, I’m just finding this out, I’ve gotta do something about it’,” said Richardson. “People really seem outraged and are looking for answers in terms of how they can contribute to change.”
As for the future of her business?
“We’ll be doing just fine,” she said. “(We’ll) do another 60 years.”