Black-Owned Bookstores That Should Be at the Top of Your Holiday Shopping List

Whether you’re shopping for Christmas or Kwanzaa, Black independent bookstores are a great destination to add to your holiday list. From stationary to stickers for stocking stuffers, store owners said they have gifts for every member of the family. 

Courtney Bledsoe, who runs Call & Response Bookstore in Chicago, said she knows that some people may be hesitant about buying a book for a holiday gift. But Bledsoe said as long as you know the person, booksellers can help you pick the perfect gift. 

Larger corporations like Amazon and Target sell books at a lower price compared to independent Black bookstores. Five bookstore owners told Capital B their stores provide community, something large corporations don’t. 

The following Black bookstores across the country share the offerings they have on the shelves this holiday season. 

For those seeking books and community 

Call & Response in Chicago

Call & Response hosts events like author chats at the bookstore. (Courtesy of Courtney Bledsoe)

The mission of Call & Response is pretty simple: normalize books by Black and authors of color, said Bledsoe, who opened shop in Chicago in May 2024. 

“There is an entire world of literature out there,” Bledsoe said. “Be it science fiction, fantasy, romance, literary fiction, nonfiction and [children’s] graphic novels … there’s an entire world out there that is waiting for everybody. My goal is to normalize all of that.” 

Bledsoe said when she first opened the bookstore in Hyde Park — a neighborhood that is 40% white and 28% Black, according to state data — some customers realized all her books featured people of color. They immediately walked out. Bledsoe said this shouldn’t be the case. People should normalize reading books that center groups that aren’t just white people. 

Instead of pre-ordering your books from chain bookstores such as Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, or Amazon, Bledsoe said she is encouraging people to pre-order from indie bookstores like her own. Her shelves are stocked with books that are in high demand, not just across the country, but from her community as well.

For those in the area, Bledsoe said she curates community events that she refers to as a “third space” for customers to get to know their neighbors. She wants people to get to know their local community as well as they know the characters in the books they’re reading. Bledsoe and her customers come up with ideas for the events: They hold silent book clubs, open mics, local author events, and fundraise for children living in the Palestinian territories. 

While she loves what she does, she said she’s faced some challenges being a Black woman who owns a small business. Customers sometimes will ask if her store will price-match Amazon, Target, and other big corporations (she doesn’t) or come in with their own preconceived notions about her identity as a Black woman.  

Still, Bledscoe shows up to serve her community. She has only one part-time employee at Call & Response.

“It’s been a pleasure to just be able to be that space for people,” she said. “I always say that this is kind of a judgment-free zone when it comes to literacy and reading.” 

If you’re not sure what book to get someone, Bledscoe said shoppers can ask bookstore employees for recommendations. 

There are other items you can purchase that aren’t books at her store: Black-themed crossword puzzles, Apostrophe Puzzles (a Black-owned puzzle company), candles, stickers, journals, and stuffed animals for the little ones. 

Call & Response is on Bookshop, and Libro fm, the audiobook alternative for Audible, which is owned and operated by Amazon. 

Other Black-owned bookstores in the Midwest:

For the hopeless romantics

Grand Gesture Books, Portland, Oregon 

Katherine Morgan used to sell books at another independent bookstore, and she said she felt the absence of Black folks and other people of color in the romance genre. 

Morgan used to work in the romance section, which led her to open her own independent bookstore in downtown Portland, Oregon. She said her store focuses on the people who are often overlooked in romance books. 

“It’s so important to highlight people’s identities because it helps them learn more about themselves,” Morgan said. “It helps them discover what it is that they deserve in a romance themselves, whether that’s on the page or in real life.”

Thinking back to when she was a child, Morgan said she doesn’t remember Black people as the main character in romance books. It wasn’t until she was around 26 that she read a popular Black romance book by Jasmine Guillory. 

“When you don’t see yourselves represented in a genre where it’s important that everyone gets a happily ever after,” she said, “it makes you convinced that you don’t deserve that, or that something is actually wrong with you, and it’s not that at all.”

Books are how Morgan said she discovered she was queer later on in life. She said queer representation is also important at her store, where she has two large bookcases dedicated to just LGBTQ romance. 

Grand Gesture Books doesn’t just bring representation from the page, Morgan said they bring representation in real life, too. She said while her store can’t compete with Amazon’s prices, she can build connections with the community and her customers to adjust her inventory to meet demand. 

The store held an all-day wedding ceremony in partnership with a local county in Oregon where judges were able to officiate weddings. Among the shelves as the couples stood together, she said her bookstore became a hub for real-life romance.

If you’re not into physical books, Morgan said folks can still shop for other gifts such as stickers, and cases for e-readers. 

Grand Gesture is also on Bookshop. 

Other Black independent bookstores to shop on the West Coast:

For those Craving Access to Black History

Marshall’s Music and Books in Jackson, Mississippi 

If you’re feeling radical and you’re in the South for the holidays, stop by Marshall’s Music and Books, one of the oldest bookstores in the country. It has been open for 87 years — and counting. 

The shop has moved only two times since its opening in 1938, said Maati Primm, the current owner. For decades, the bookstore’s home has been located on Farish Street in Jackson, Mississippi, where Primm said gentrification is taking over. 

Primm said with Mississippi’s ongoing attacks on diversity initiatives, she’s seeing more Black families come into her shop to access books and parts of history that are no longer taught in schools. 

“We have a large collection of Black history and Black culture books,” she told Capital B. “That was something that hadn’t been done before I got here, and so that is something that has been added.” 

Primm said she feels like education has become illegal in her state when it comes to teaching Black people about their history. But she said that is not going to stop her and her community.  Instead, Primm said patrons are asking questions: “Why is it you don’t want me to know my history? What is in my history that threatens the status quo?”  

That’s why she has a wall dedicated to important faces in Black literature — some of whom are from Jackson, like young adult author Angie Thomas. Thomas’s book The Hate U Give, which was turned into a feature film in 2018, was challenged in several public libraries and schools across the country. 

Marshall’s has items other than books such as dashiki’s, bracelets, Bible and spiritual literature churches can purchase in bulk, Primm said. As of right now, she said, customers can shop only in the store. 

Other bookshops to support across the South:

If you’re looking for a small town feel with big shelf energy 

Obodo Serendipity in Stratford, Connecticut 

Obodo Serendipity Books started as a pop-up bookshop at a local coffee shop and has blossomed into a bookstore in Stratford, Connecticut. Since its opening in September 2024, the store has hosted Black Santa two times and has made connections with its surrounding community through events. 

“After realizing how receptive the community was to supporting a pop-up shop randomly twice a month, I felt like a brick and mortar was more of a possibility,” said the bookstore’s owner, Nikkya Hargrove. “It was a viable option for our town.” 

Nikkya Hargrove, owner of Obodo Serendipity Books (Courtesy of Nikkya Hargrove)

While business booms during months like Black and Women’s History as well as Pride, Hargrove said she wants to remind folks that independent bookstores have to keep the lights on 365 days a year and keep the shelves stocked. 

The store got started with the help of the community and Honeycomb Credit, a peer-funded loan platform that invests in minority-owned small businesses. Hargrove fundraised $32,000 to help with start-up costs.

Hargrove is also a published author and editor-in-chief of the Stratford Crier, a local newspaper. She said the store is situated in a community still reeling from the impacts of redlining. She has spent the past year working on marketing to different neighborhoods by partnering with business owners to sell books at their stores. 

Hargrove has a volunteer who helps her at Obodo Serendipity. Despite being the only full-time employee, the bookstore still hosts monthly author events and a middle grade book club that lets the young readers come up with their own discussion points. 

The community outreach doesn’t just stop at bookish events. Obodo Serendipity also offers yoga classes, and partners with cultural services in Connecticut, an organization that provides job training for those with mental disabilities such as autism. For about six weeks, members of the organization work with Hargrove to gain experience.

You can find Obodo Serendipity on Bookshop to purchase books. Other gifts such as stationary items and non-book items are sold only at the store. 

Other bookstores to shop on the East Coast:

A bookstore to scratch the itch to support Palestine this season

Loyalty Books in Washington, D.C. 

Some indie bookstores can focus on Black romance, but Hannah Oliver Depp, one of the co-owners at Loyalty Books, said they wanted to highlight communities that are on the brink of erasure in the nation’s capital. 

“I really wanted to be able to serve the communities that I’d grown up with, and be able to wholeheartedly say whatever I wanted to say, and support whatever causes we wanted to support and represent the community,” said Depp, who uses they/she pronouns. 

Washington, which earned its nickname “Chocolate City” for being a majority Black city, is seeing a decrease in Black residents. In the 2000s, the Black population declined by 58,000 while the white population increased by upward of 80,000, according to a report by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, a source for data in the Washington area. 

This bookstore doesn’t just highlight Black voices, Depp said; it highlights voices from all marginalized communities, such as authors who are disabled, as well as books featuring characters of color. 

As someone who is Black, queer, on the spectrum, interracial, and an adoptee, they said it only felt right to bring their intersectionalities as a symbol to Loyalty Books, which is located in Petworth in Northwest D.C. 

Loyalty Books is located in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It moved to its new location in February 2025. (Alecia Taylor/Capital B News)

In the windows of the store are the Pride flag, a Black Lives Matter sign, Free DC signs, and the slogan “None of us are free until all of us are free,” in support of Palestinians. 

In a recent social media post, Depp said that the store’s windows have been vandalized several times. However, this only led her to use this as momentum: last week, 10% of the store’s earnings are going to Free DC as well as individual fundraisers for people who are on the ground in Gaza. 

“Instead of silencing us, all that did was empower us to do something we’re not normally able to do as a small business and financially put our money where our mouth is,” they said. “I try to exist as a place that points out how all these interconnections work.”

Loyalty Books started as a pop-up shop in 2018. After seeing the support of the bookstore during pop-ups and online, Depp opened a physical bookstore in 2019, before the start of the COVID-19 epidemic. 

As businesses closed and people stayed home in 2020, Depp moved all bookstore events online, but she said the community continued to support. The online effort was spearheaded by Christine Bollow, who worked then as the programming lead. Bollow, who is Filipino and a member of the disabled community, later joined as a co-owner of Loyalty Books. 

Bollow helps plan large community events and partnerships with D.C. Public Library and as well as the bookstore’s participation in Awesome Con, the annual comic-con event in D.C. 

Loyalty books also has other booksellers who help the owners curate their inventory through book recommendations and events. When walking through the bookstore, there are even note cards with staff suggestions for books. 

There are also stickers that they create with the bookstore logo that customers can stop in and purchase. Customers can purchase audiobooks and gift cards on their site and on Bookshop. 

Other bookstores in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area:

The African American Literature Book Club — a site dedicated to information about Black authors and books — has an interactive map to help people find more independent Black-owned bookstores.

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