According to WordsRated, there are 149 Black-owned bookstores in the United States, representing just 6 percent of the 2,500 independent bookstores in the country. As for Black, nonbinary-owned bookstores? It's safe to assume the number is much less.
That representation matters, said Taylor Thomas, who is planning to become number 150.
While growing up in Baltimore, Thomas was an avid reader and enjoyed books like "Jane Eyre," "Little Women" and "Pride and Prejudice," which were gifts from their book-loving grandmother. Thomas became friends with their high school English teacher, and after graduating would go to her home to eat cookies, drink tea and talk about books. "I was known as a librarian within my friends," Thomas said.
But rarely did Thomas find books with characters that looked like them or reflected their sexuality. "I was a huge fantasy nerd and so often, that meant just consuming literature that was very white, cis, straight centric," they said, "which, while fine, got to be incredibly boring."
In 2020, Thomas decided to start a side hustle selling used books from their own collection, while also continuing to work as a remote office manager for a company in Brooklyn. They launched an Instagram account called The Secondhand Librarian and sold books at events like The Lucky Flea. The primary focus was used books about queer people or people of color. To replenish stock, they would head to estate sales and thrift stores while visiting family in the Washington D.C. area.
An enthusiastic response took Thomas by surprise. "I was unprepared," they said. "I really didn’t expect it to become a full-time job.” Eventually, balancing the office manager job and the side business got to be too much. In mid-2022, they closed up shop to learn and strategize how to run a business.
Now, Thomas is back in business with a new plan and vision.
Under the name The Secondhand Librarian, they stock used books at Bookeater, the new bookstore and café in the South Wedge.
The next step is hitting the road in a mobile bookstore ― kind of like a food truck, but for books — called Archivist Books. "A lot of people can’t get to bookstores," Thomas said. "I want to take books to people.”
Thomas found the perfect vehicle on Facebook Marketplace: a vintage 1968 Globestar trailer. The fact that it was located in Michigan posed a challenge; they ended up towing it to Rochester behind a U-Haul box truck. "It was the craziest 48 hours," Thomas said.