The champions of the Austin bookstore belonging to blacks have banned books and the community
The owners of Black Pearl Books want to make sure that readers can find all the books that have been prohibited by Texas school districts last year.
“If an entity will try to restrict access to a title or a book, we will try to understand how to make sure that people have access to this book,” said Eric Brooks, who has the North Austin bookstore with His wife, Katrina.
Texas school districts fired 538 titles During the school year 2023-2024, according to Pen America, a non-profit organization which advocates freedom of expression.
The Americans do not like to be informed of what to do, said Eric, so having a prohibited book section has good commercial sense.
“We are free to do what we want,” he said. “When the books are prohibited, in general, you see the sales of books increase.”
Renee Dominguez
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Kut News
Access for everyone
Brooks founded Black Pearl Books in 2019 after moving to Austin from California. But they are not moved to Austin to start a bookstore. In fact, they did not know what they would do here, only that they felt called to the city by God.
“It was definitively an act of obedience and a denominational decision,” said Katrina. “When we left, my friends would say to each other:” Well, why are you going? ” And my honest answer was: “I don’t know”. »»
At that time, Katrina began to realize that the impact reading had on her own children.
“When my children were young, there was a concerted effort to find characters who looked like them, to find protagonists, to find stories with whom they could identify,” she said. “And we therefore spent a lot of time in libraries, bookstores.”
She noticed that the vocabulary of her children and her skills in critical thinking often moved their peers, and she knew that it came from their exhibition to books.
“It was really a kind of seed for the Black Pearl books,” said Katrina. “Everyone needs to have access (books).”
Black Pearl Books started as an online store that has made pop-up events. Sales increased during the pandemic, especially during the movement for racial justice in 2020. For a certain time, the Brooks shared a space with 10,000 villages, then they moved into their own storefront on Burnet Road in 2022.
The store is one of the rare bookstores belonging to blacks in Texas.
Now said Katrina, she understands why the family felt called in the city.
“Black Pearl Book was the reason why we are in Austin, because it would not have happened elsewhere.”
Renee Dominguez
/ /
Kut News
More than a bookstore
“Bookstores are community poles,” said Eric.
“Pass as retailers,” added Katrina.
Over the years, Brooks have expanded the idea of the role that their store can play Austin. In addition to selling books, they welcome discussions on promoted authors as more to give between the public.
“This is more of a community conversation,” said Katrina.
The store also offers books for free and has a second -hand book section entitled “Regoffhed Reads”.
“You have very modern and contemporary things that are published now that people have taken up two months ago, read it and donate it,” said Katrina.
All the benefits of second-hand book sales go to the non-profit organization linked to the store, put it in a book. The name refers to an era in the United States when black literacy has been punishable by death.
“The saying says that if you want to hide something from a black person,” said Eric, “put it in a book.”
“Our goal is to go back completely,” he adds. “We want to put our stories in books and share them between ourselves. The non -profit organization has the same mission as the for -profit company, which is to promote diversity, inclusion and representation through literature. »»
Put it in a book helps to bring the authors to the schools of title I. He donates books to a prison for women and associates with other organizations to read to third year students.
“We bring enough copies (from a book) so that each student of this class to bring home,” explains Eric. “So not only do we perform this act (reading) that we want them to do, but we also provide them with something to build their personal library.”
The non -profit organization is working with Austin’s secondary schools to support students who wish to start their own prohibited reading clubs.
“Each high school wanted to participate,” said Katrina.
The non -profit store and organization have the same objective, said Eric.
“We are waiting for people to do an equal thing,” he said. “We must understand how to create this fair world that we want or desire.”
Miles Bloxson has produced audio for this story.
Listen to the full interview by hitting the game at the top of this page or find this episode and more of the Black Austin Match podcast Apple,, Spotify Or wherever you get your podcasts.
