Baldwin & Co. opened only three years ago, but the bookstore was packed on a recent summer afternoon. Over the past year, the Black-owned shop has featured a splashy countdown to what would have been the 100th birthday of its namesake. James Baldwin, the bookstore's website says, is "a literary giant whose work on race, identity, and social justice continues to resonate today."
Baldwin was born on Aug. 2, 1924, in New York City. Baldwin & Co. was born in a gleaming white building of around the same vintage in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. The bookstore is the brainchild of DJ Johnson, who grew up in the city among a family of avid readers.
"We never had much of anything else, but we always had books in the home," he recalled. "And my dad was a huge proponent of us reading Black literature."
Johnson remembers his childhood as defined by the tensions of a racially segregated neighborhood. Suspicions between Black and white residents ran high. His family lived on a street with only Black families. "There was a literal wooden fence," he said. "And on the other side of that rickety wooden fence was what we called 'the white people lane.'"
If a friend or family was foolhardy enough to venture there, police were called, Johnson said. False accusations, violence and injustice often followed. "As I'm witnessing that, I'm reading James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time," he said. "It spoke to me."
As an undergraduate at Clark Atlanta University, a historically Black institution, the young Johnson studied technology, rather than literature. But his favorite memories include late-night rap sessions with Daniel Black, a Baldwin scholar. "It was electric," he said. "The energy was so vibrant."
Johnson became a tech executive and real estate developer in Washington, D.C., but he always visited independent bookstores while traveling. In Paris, he sought out the legendary Shakespeare and Company, where literature nerds sometimes stand in line to get in. While waiting, Johnson dreamed, for the first time, of opening someplace similar.
"If I was ever to open up a store … I would call it Baldwin and Company, and I would want people to stand in line like this," he recalled. "I would want them to stand in line just like they're standing here, [but at a bookstore] that pays homage to a Black literary great."
Soon after that, Johnson moved back to New Orleans to care for an aging parent.
"I got bored," he admitted. "As I was walking around the community and talking to people, talking to the young kids, I always had a book in my hand. People would ask me, why do you always have a book in your hand? And I was like, why don't you have a book in your hand?"
That question helped fuel the bookstore's creation. Although he says he wasn't motivated by financial success, Johnson is now convinced that his independent bookstore sells more books by Baldwin than any other, anywhere. "They're our No. 1 seller," he said. "Every single week, we have recurring orders. Every single week, we are ordering large shipments of James Baldwin books."
Baldwin fans visit from all over the world, with a notable number from China, but Johnson said his primary goal is for Baldwin & Co. to serve as a community hub.
"We do book festivals where we give away thousands of books for free to kids," he explained. "We just held a banned-book festival. The books they're banning, we're giving them out for free. At our book festivals, we provide free food, free drinks and free entertainment."
"We allow local authors to come in and set up tables," he continued. "They can sell their books. There's no commission. Whatever the authors sell the books for, they get to keep. We allow vendors to come and sell their personal handicrafts. We don't charge anything. We also do free summer literacy tutoring services and financial literacy services, because we are dedicated to ending generational poverty and building financial wellness within our communities. We also offer community meetups where individuals can come to Baldwin and discuss issues from health care to childhood obesity, young parenting and needs for new mothers."
Every child who attends the store's monthly story time gets a free book, he added. "Because we're dedicated to building home libraries."
Along with all his celebrated novels, essays, short stories, plays and poems in print, Baldwin's book for children, Little Man, Little Man, is available at the bookstore.
"James Baldwin has changed my life," Johnson said. "His literature, his perspective, his insight. They have changed my life. And I wanted to give that opportunity to others.
"The first week, we had lines three blocks long every day, the entire day, to get in," he added. "And I was like, 'Oh, this is like Shakespeare and Company. That's what this is like.'"
A place of pilgrimage for readers from all over the world who find in James Baldwin truth, beauty and guidance for how to bear being in this world.
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