Victoria Scott-Miller opened the first Black-owned children’s bookstore in North Carolina last weekend, called Liberation Station.
The new brick-and-mortar store opened its doors on Saturday in downtown Raleigh. Liberation Station started as a pop-up in 2019 after she took her sons to a national chain bookstore to find books with characters that looked like him.
“When we went to the bookstore as a family of four, we thought that it would be an easy, in and out,” she says. “But unfortunately, it would be a scavenger hunt that would take us nearly 4 hours to walk out with just a handful of books.”
After hours of searching, the family left with only a few books. As their son walked out of the store discouraged, Scott-Miller and her husband considered how they could make a space for their kids to see themselves on the shelves.
“Our children, they need room to be able to dream,” she says. “We walked out inspired to create the thing that needed to be seen.”
Wondering what’s on the shelves at Liberation Station? Scott-Miller shared some book recommendations.
Owner Victoria Scott-Miller and her son, Emerson, cut the ribbon at the grand opening of her Liberation Station Bookstore. North Carolina’s first Black-owned children’s bookstore opened June 17, 2023 in downtown Raleigh. (Phillip Loken)
Book recommendations from Victoria Scott-Miller
- “Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free: The True Story of the Grandmother of Juneteenth” by Alice Faye Duncan
- “Freedom In Congo Square” by Carole Boston Weatherford
- “Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life” by Ashley Bryan
- “Free at Last: A Juneteenth Poem” by Sojourner Kincaid Rolle
- “Watermelon and Red Birds: A Cookbook for Juneteenth and Black Celebrations,” by Nicole A. Taylor
- “In Pursuit of Flavor: The Beloved Classic Cookbook from the Acclaimed Author of The Taste of Country Cooking,” by Edna Lewis
- “Across the Tracks: Remembering the Tulsa Race Massacre and Black Wall Street,” by Alverne Ball and Stacey Robinson
Samantha Raphelson produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Julia Corcoran. Raphelson also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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