Nappy Roots Books, a Bastion and a Haven: A Conversation with Camille Landry, by Alex Crayon

Current Events On a visit to an Oklahoma City bookstore, Alex Crayon finds more than books. When I pulled into the snow-covered parking lot of Nappy Roots Books in northeast Oklahoma City, the first thing I noticed were the posters. Handwritten signs encouraging people to “Come in and Get Warm” and declaring “Masks Are Required Inside” hung taped to the glass-door entrance. In the window beside the door, signs proudly announced Nappy Roots as a Black-owned business supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, and flyers gave information about voting rights, clearing warrants, and chess club. Not exactly Barnes & Noble—in the best way possible. Nappy Roots Books is, if I must summarize, an intimate environment—not just a place. To call this bookstore simply a place would be to devalue it, to strip away the life imbued within the walls of this one-room store. Inside, tightly packed bookshelves hold books new and old, fiction and nonfiction, religious texts and travel companions. Two well-worn recliners flank a small table topped with a jar of cookies. A coffee-maker sits on a shelf near the register. And, in the center of the store, a long metal bookshelf holds every kind of Black literature: James Baldwin leans beside local writers, whose self-published books, says owner Camille Landry, are a source of empowerment for their authors. “There are people who said, ‘I did twelve years in the penitentiary, and I came out and wrote... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2021-02-22 21:59:22 UTC ]

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