I work at Barnes & Noble as a bookseller now, as of April this year.

In honor of Black Music Month, Juneteenth, and the ongoing, well-deserved buzz of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, I approached the store manager about doing a display in honor of all three — and he agreed!

So, with his guidelines of using books in the store (or available through the warehouse to order), I created a booklist and a drawing of the potential display. (My original idea was to create the top of a juke joint with an awning that hung over the books. The manager said that the store “wasn’t at that level yet” but encouraged me to continue.) With another manager’s help, I ordered some of the books and sought out the rest of them in-store. And I drafted the text for the sign, complete with initially misspelling Coogler’s name. (Bryan?? BRYAN??? Chile…another reason why writers need editors to help them. We’re too close to the words we pen.) And the store manager added the Juneteeth titles; I was too busy trying to get the concept of the book order right that I forgot that part!

My Black co-workers — and a couple of white ones — said they loved the display. Every Black customer I showed the display to said they *loved* the display, including a father who said he was coordinating a Juneteenth event at his job and an administrator at the local community college who said she’d tell the attendees at the school’s Juneteenth fest about the display! Some took photos of the display; and, important to the store, some have bought books from the display, which goes to it can generate some money and well as be and educational tool.

Here’s the latest iteration of the display, complete with my corrected spelling of Coogler’s name:

The idea is that the books on both ends of each rows represent the social forces/decisions/policies/art/activism of certain periods that produced the music — again represented by books — in the center. The titles rotate as customers buy them.

Considering that it’s my very first B & N display, I’m pretty proud of it, including the lessons learned. I’m also thrilled that my display is doing right by the Black customers, who, I’m told, weren’t quite feeling represented in the store. In this age where it seems the aim is to erase Black Americans’ heritage and contributions to U.S. culture so all we and everyone else knows us for are stateless slaves, I’m glad I did my imperfect part to resist for The Community and Culture.

Here’s a video that my coworker Natalie and I recorded about the display. It lives on Instagram (I know, I know…)