Audrey Shipp
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https://audreyshipp.substack.com/p/vanishing-bookstores-and-black-spaces #losangeles #gentrification #blacktwitter #bookstores
Vanishing Bookstores and Black Spaces in Los Angeles

While it's not the only Black bookstore in Los Angeles, the closing of Eso Won...is also symbolic of the disappearance of independent bookstores in the Los Angeles area.

Blog Riffs on Writing the Globe
Nov 28, 2022 at 8:22pmWeb
Show threadAudrey ShippNov 28, 2022
2/Eso Won Bookstore was awarded Bookstore of the year by Publishers Weekly in 2021. It was also recognized as one of the largest Black-owned bookstores in the U.S. After 36 years, the owners decided to close the store located in Leimert Park in the Crenshaw District. I frequented Eso Won to hear writers and activists speak about their books and work, especially following the 2014 police murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The day I went to Eso Won recently…
Leimert Park felt like both...
Show threadAudrey ShippNov 28, 2022
3/maroon village and movie set. Eso Won’s closing is symbolic of the decline in Los Angeles’s Black population from 13% to 8%. It’s also symbolic of the closing of independent bookstores like those along the long-gone Booksellers’ Row on Westwood Blvd that included Spanish, French, feminist bookstores, and Westwood
Bookstore; the Bodhi Tree near West Hollywood; and the leftist Midnight Special Bookstore that held it down for 23 years on the now-gentrified Third Street Promenade in Santa...
Show threadAudrey ShippNov 28, 2022
4/Monica. Maya Angelou, bell hooks, Elaine Brown & Edward Said spoke at Midnight Special. And it’s where Jimmy Santiago Baca signed my copy of “Martín & Meditations on the…
South Valley.
-Read the full essay on my free Substack: https://audreyshipp.substack.com/p/vanishing-bookstores-and-black-spaces
Vanishing Bookstores and Black Spaces in Los Angeles

While it's not the only Black bookstore in Los Angeles, the closing of Eso Won...is also symbolic of the disappearance of independent bookstores in the Los Angeles area.

Blog Riffs on Writing the Globe