London’s First Black Feminist Bookshop

“A radical space of resistance, sisterhood and community.”

Dee Creative is an intersectional Black Feminist and is a passionate “advocate for racial justice and gender equality.” Her biggest dream is to open a Black Feminist Bookshop, “a safe and welcoming space where Black women can explore and discuss literary works that centre and reflect the Black female experience.”

To put this lifelong goal into reality, Dee has set up a crowdfunding project, which aims to raise a target of £5,000. The money from this project will initially be used to fund travelling pop-up shops, the first of which is due to launch in early 2019. Alongside these pop-ups, Dee wants to host QTIPOC (Queer, Transgender and Intersex People of Colour) events “in community spaces that understand the challenges that Black women face.” Following this, Dee hopes to establish a permanent location by 2020 where “visitors will have access to new and second-hand Black feminist and QTIPOC literature, and books that explore identity, culture and belonging that are written by women of colour.”

To donate money to the cause, you can head to The Black Feminist Bookshop crowdfunder page and pledge as little as £3, “No donation is too small to finance the first stage of the bookshop.”

You can also help by donating second-hand books by women of colour. All you need to do, is drop the books off at Housmans Radical Booksellers, Kings Cross, London and tell them they are for the Black Feminist Bookshop.

Finally, and most simply you can help out by sharing the campaign, Dee asks people to “talk about it with as many people as you can. In a city as big and diverse as London a Black feminist bookshop is long overdue.”

While Dee’s main audience is, as the name of the proposed shop suggests, black feminists, she believes “that everybody would benefit from engaging with Black feminist texts, because as well as offering a radical perspective on resistance, resilience and perseverance, they also offer an opportunity to become better informed about race, gender and inclusion.”

This new crowdfunding campaign follows the success of publisher Knights Of, who have raised over £30,000 for their inclusive children’s bookshop #ReadtheOnePercent – plus a £15,000, match-fund pledge from Penguin Random House. So, fingers crossed in 2019 we will see more inclusive bookshops pop-up across the country and everyone will have the opportunity to read a more diverse range of books.