Black-Owned Children’s Bookstore In Raleigh Moving After Receiving Threats
RALEIGH — Liberation Station Bookstore, North Carolina’s first Black-owned children’s bookstore, is moving out of downtown Raleigh less than a year after opening, WRAL reports.
Liberation Station opened on Juneteenth 2023 at 208 Fayetteville St. on the second floor of the Efird building. The bright, intimate space hosts events and sells children’s books written and illustrated by Black and underrepresented authors and illustrators.
“Unfortunately, we live in a country that has given permission to the nameless and faceless people to make threats and cause harm, emotional harm,” owner Victoria Scott-Miller said.
On Monday (April 1), Scott-Miller posted on Instagram that the bookstore will leave its space on April 30 after receiving “numerous threats.” Scott-Miller is a mother of two boys and said one phone call mentioned her eldest son.
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Scott-Miller said she and her family took a break from operating the store for about two weeks after the threats started. She operates the store with her husband and 13-year-old son.
“We went away for two weeks just to breathe and process that the thing we had created for good was now attempting to be destroyed and taken away from us somehow,” she said.
In response to the threats, Scott-Miller said she frequently changed operating hours.
“We’ve been strategizing within our means to avoid being targeted,” she wrote. In January, Scott-Miller said she brought the threat concerns to the building’s landlords when they started showing the space to potential new tenants.
“Because we’re in the business of children, we’re responsible for their safety,” Scott-Miller said.
Scott-Miller explained why she was initially reluctant to share her concerns.
“Part of the reason we didn’t want to talk about this is that I didn’t want to become the face of another movement,” she said. “I didn’t want to become the face of another cause. I wanted to settle into this space with a peace that we all deserve.”
Scott-Miller said the move does not mean the end of Liberation Station, writing, “It certainly won’t mark the end of Liberation Station Bookstore. There is so much more work to be done.”
On Tuesday, Scott-Miller said the bookstore would remain operational until April 13.
“Afterwards, we will begin our move forward,” Scott-Miller said. “Any remaining inventory will be donated to literacy nonprofits throughout the Triangle.”
Scott-Miller said the bookstore would “return to the drawing board to reassess and redefine what we will need in our next location.”
Scott-Miller described Liberation Station Bookstore as “everything.”
“It is a sanctuary,” Scott-Miller said. “It is a home. It’s church. It is your grandmama’s dinner table.”
Before securing its brick-and-mortar space, Liberation Station hosted pop-up bookstore events across the area.
This article first appeared on WRAL
This is so sad and ridiculous to hear! My heart goes out to the family impacted by this.
Has Josh Stein, North Carolina’s Attorney General showed interest in investigating this? I would hope that someone in the general area brings this to his attention.
Yes, I agree this should be investigated. The burden should not be left to the owners to sort this out. What about our Police and City Council. This needs to be addressed!
This is a shame. I don’t think she should go anywhere at all. She’s down there. Doing a good deed trying to teach black children. Something different and be a pillar in her community. Instead we get these racist. People that wants are out of town that she’s leaving. I wish she stayed down there but I don’t think the police will investigate the threats anyway. They wouldn’t do that not to a black woman