Black Books and Dead Black Bodies: Twitter, Hashtags, and Antiracist Reading Lists

In 2000, Janifer P. Wilson started Sisters Uptown Bookstore in Harlem, New York. For two decades, she struggled to turn a profit selling books, and so Wilson worked a different full-time job to keep her bookstore afloat. But her fortunes greatly improved during the summer of 2020, as conversations and sympathy concerning violence against black people prompted unprecedented sales of black books at black-owned booksellers. Wilson welcomed the uptick in profit yet was conflicted about the circumstances: “to have our business surge in a matter of weeks as the result of an unfortunate incident with a man losing his life and the whole world getting to see it has just impacted my spirit and soul” (de León et. al). Like many people, Linda Duggins, Senior Director of Punlicity at Grand Central Publishing, thought that it was “awesome” that conversations related to Black Lives Matter led to unprecedented support for books by African Americans and blackowned bookstores. However, she too had reservations. “It does sadden me,” she noted, “to know that the push for the sales is connected to that stacking of dead Black bodies” (de León et. al).