Prose to the People

A stunning visual homage to Black bookstores, featuring a selection of shops around the country alongside essays that celebrate the history, community, activism, and culture these spaces embody, with an original foreword by Nikki Giovanni.

“Through vivid photography, interviews, and essays, this work—part-travelogue and part-manifesto—helps us fall in love with the places that have centered Black literature as a form of resistance.”

“Presented in a visually dynamic, scrapbook-style format, the coffee table book supplements Mitchell’s experiential narratives and Q&As with booksellers with new and vintage photos, old documents, advertisements and flyers, plus poems and essays from other contributors.”

“Prose to the People is a moving and visually breathtaking celebration of not only Black bookstores but also Black communities, Black thought, and Black life. We need this book now.”

“Prose to the People chronicles beautifully the lives and work of some important but seldom examined contributors to the struggle for Black freedom. It’s astonishing that the importance of the contributors highlighted in this volume remains so woefully ignored.”

“Prose to the People is a celebration of the past, present, and future of Black bookstores and their ultimate legacy: community. This is a book for anyone who has ever loved a Black bookstore, not only for the books inside but also for the sense that when you’re there, you’re among your people.”

Katie Mitchell is a storyteller and bookseller. Katie lives, works, and writes in Atlanta, Georgia. Her online and pop-up Black bookstore, Good Books, has been featured in The New York Times, NBC, NPR, PBS, and many other outlets. Katie is a Dorothy Porter Wesley fellow.