An excerpt from Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores by Katie Mitchell, out April 8:
“Meeting Desiree Sanders made me wish I had a time machine so I could travel back to the 1990s and 2000s and just once, experience Chicago’s first Black woman-owned bookstore, Afrocentric Bookstore. …
Before the store closed permanently in 2008, Afrocentric Bookstore served the Black community for 18 years. Thousands sat at book signings, partied at book festivals, browsed curated inventory, and soaked in the artful aesthetics that Afrocentric became known for—no time machine required.”