The First Black-Owned Bookstore and the Fight for Freedom

The country’s first Black-owned bookstore opened in New York City in 1834, the brainchild of David Ruggles. He was an abolitionist, founder and writer of the anti-slavery newspaper Mirror of Liberty, and one of the early organizers of a network that would become the Underground Railroad. Everything about his work, including his bookstore, was done to support and fight for Black lives.