Cover Photo: A stack of books by Black writers including Colson Whitehead, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Bryan Stevenson, and Ibram X. Kendi sits atop a table.
Photograph by Tim Wildsmith/Unsplash

Bookseller Spotlight: Shirikiana Aina Gerima of Sankofa Video, Books & Café

The Washington, D.C. bookstore “represents the generation of people who kept Black publishing and Black voices alive while they were under attack.”

Bookseller Spotlight, a series of features by Steve Haruch on the business of bookselling.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, Sankofa Video, Books & Café in Washington, D.C., like so many other small businesses, shut its doors in response. Then, co-owner Shirikiana Aina Gerima gave her buyer instructions that had once been unthinkable: take down all the books and send them back. It was like having cash sitting on the shelves, and cash was one thing they couldn’t afford to let collect dust.

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Sankofa

Ashes and EmbersBrick by BrickThrough the Door of No Return

Photograph courtesy of Shirikiana Aina Gerima

Sankofa

SankofaSankofa

SankofaBlack Power Chronicles

Steve Haruch is a writer based in Nashville. He edited the books Greetings From New Nashville and People Only Die of Love in Movies: Film Writing by Jim Ridley. His work has appeared at The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR's Code Switch and elsewhere.