Crowdfunder launches for London's first black feminist bookshop

A digital consultant has launched a crowdfunder to create London’s first black feminist bookshop.

Since Dee Creative started the campaign on Saturday (5th January), the project has accrued around £2,000 worth of funding within three days, with the ultimate goal of £5,000 for an initial travelling pop-up. 

The venture is a "lifelong goal” of digital expert Creative, who described herself as "an intersectional black feminist, multidisciplinary creative, and a passionate advocate for racial justice and gender equality” with a mission to develop creative approaches to resistance that uplift black women. 

She revealed on the Crowdfunder page "a desire to create a safe and welcoming space where black women can explore and discuss literary works that centre and reflect the black female experience".

"While my main audience will be black women, I believe 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,” she wrote.

The pop-up and the bookshop will stock a mixture of new and second-hand books. For the second-hand books, she has arranged a donation drop-off point in Central London at Housmans Radical Booksellers, Kings Cross. The bookshop will also feature an event space, she said, as well as having a selection of free books available "for those who just want to sit and read". 

Before a permanent location is set up, Creative will run a travelling pop-up stall, launching later this year, which will feature at various events and in community spaces, and she has appealed for event organisers to contact her. She is also seeking volunteers to help with marketing and promotion and fundraising.

Some of the 100-odd supporters include authors such as US feminist writer Kate Harding as well as projects which have successfully crowdfunded themselves such as children’s publisher Knights Of which has just raised £30,000 for a permanent store and the Second Shelf bookshop which recently opened in Soho as a feminist bookshop and journal. The Feminist Library also recently received £35,000 through a successful campaign, to secure a new home in Peckham.

The fundraiser will run until 1st March. For more information, visit blackfeministreading@gmail.com.