Photo by Caitlin Abrams
Dionne Sims
Minnesota’s only Black-owned bookstore has found a space of its own on University Avenue West. With renovation starting in February, founder Dionne Sims expects the shop to open its doors in Midway in late summer 2022.
Councilmember Mitra Jalali’s office awarded Sims’ Black Garnet Books with a $100,000 Neighborhood Sales Tax Revitalization (STAR) grant to renovate and open the first-ever physical spot, after the store operated for a year primarily as a pop-up at Merci Tattoo.
Finding a location that checked all the boxes—close to public transit, ADA accessible, had a parking lot and the ideal size—posed a challenge to Sims, who has been scouting out bookstore spots since January. “The STAR grant really cemented my ability to be in that space and to be able to afford to be in that space,” Sims says. The location will be on the ground floor of the Hamline Station apartments, across from the Midway light-rail station and Target.
Besides the Black-owned bookmobile Babycakes Book Stack and the Mind's Eye comic book store in Burnsville, Sims announced via Twitter in June 2020 that Minnesota didn’t have a Black-owned, brick-and-mortar bookstore. “I think that’s my new dream,” Sims wrote. The dream turned into an immediate reality after her tweet went viral and garnered widespread community support alongside a successful GoFundMe campaign.
“For everyone who’s been waiting for there to be a Black-owned bookstore space that they can visit and hang out in, I just keep it at the forefront of my mind that this bookstore isn’t just for myself. It’s not a little pet project that I’m doing. For a lot of people, it has meaning and emotion behind it,” Sims said.
Along with selling books, Black Garnet Books started a book drive in November to donate copies of The 1619 Project to Twin Cities schools. The book drive has since donated over 700+ copies, becoming the most successful Bookshop.org 1619 book drive in the country. “The coolest thing I’ve done this year is get a book about slavery and American colonialism into the hands of hundreds of people in the city,” Sims says. The drive ends January 31. Readers can donate here.
The bookstore will stock adult and young adult contemporary literature written by Black and racially diverse authors. While renovation goes underway, readers can support Black Garnet Books by buying from its Bookshop and website.
