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Demand for anti-racist literature is up.
These black bookstore owners hope it lasts
Library and book sales data show how interest in anti-racist
and social justice titles exploded after George Floyd’s death
By Brittany Renee Mayes, Lauren Tierney and Dan Keating July 2, 2020HomeShare50
In the days following the killing of George Floyd, unrest erupted in Minneapolis and across the country. But this time, people seemed to be taking to a new form of protest and support: Anti-racist reading.
As protesters gathered in U.S. cities, demanding justice for Floyd and other black victims of police brutality, black-owned bookstores were flooded with requests for anti-racist and social justice literature.
“We’ve probably sold more books in the last month than we sold our entire first year in business,” said Jazzi McGilbert, owner of Reparations Club in Los Angeles. “Since the protest started, we are seeing pretty overwhelming support from what, based on the reading list, appear to be well-intentioned white folks that are trying to educate themselves about race in America and anti-racism.”
“I’m careful [not] to over-acknowledge people just reading books by black people. … I don’t think it should be a revolutionary act. It’s something people should have been doing for a long time.”
—Jazzi McGilbert,
owner of Reparations Club in Los Angeles
None of the books on the June 7 New York Times Best Sellers list, which was based on sales data from the week of Floyd’s death, were about race. Two weeks later, two-thirds were.
There was no similar spike in anti-racist and social justice literature after the killings of Trayvon Martin in 2012 or Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice in 2014.
Amazon Charts data shows a similar pattern. The week of May 24, no anti-racist books appeared in the week’s top 20 most sold books. Two weeks later, there were 11. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Amazon’s most sold books by week
Anti-racist book
Social justice or biographical book written by a black author
| Week of May 24 | Week of June 7 | Week of June 21 |
|---|---|---|
| 1Untamed | 1White Fragility | 1The Room Where It Happened |
| 10Can’t Hurt Me | 10Untamed | 10Becoming |
| 9If You Tell | 9Just Mercy | 9Untamed |
| 2Becoming | 2How to Be an Antiracist | 2White Fragility |
| 13American Crusade | 13Becoming | 13Born a Crime |
| 3The Decision | 3Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns | 3How to Be an Antiracist |
| 4Relationship Goals | 4So You Want to Talk About Race | 4Too Much and Never Enough |
| 5Atomic Habits | 5Me and White Supremacy | 5So You Want to Talk About Race |
| 6The Splendid and the Vile | 6The New Jim Crow | 6Stamped from the Beginning |
| 19Limitless | 19The Splendid and the Vile | 19If You Tell |
| 14The Four Agreements | 14Born a Crime | 14The Splendid and the Vile |
| 7My First Learn to Write Workbook | 7Between the World and Me | 7Countdown 1945 |
| 8The Ride of a Lifetime | 8Stamped from the Beginning | 8Between the World and Me |
| 17The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down | 17If You Tell | 17I’m Still Here |
| 11Educated | 11The Color of Law | 11The Color of Law |
| 12Rich Dad Poor Dad | 12Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? | 12I’m Your Emotional Support Animal |
| 15The Great Influenza | 15Stamped | 15Just Mercy |
| 16The Fatburn Fix | 16I’m Still Here | 16The New Jim Crow |
| 18Big Preschool Workbook | 18The Fire Next Time | 18Me and White Supremacy |
| 20Medical Medium Cleanse to Heal | 20Blackout | 20Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? |
One thing is clear from these charts: Black anti-racism educators are gaining new audiences.
Ibram X. Kendi, a historian and scholar on race, has multiple books in the top lists. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and How to Be an Antiracist both stayed in the top half of the list once they appeared. A version co-written by Jason Reynolds that was reimagined for young adults, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, appeared on the list for a week.
Ijeoma Oluo’s So you want to talk about race and Layla F. Saad’s Me and White Supremacy aim to give readers the language to talk and think about race and racism.
White Fragility and The Color of Law, by white authors Robin DiAngelo and Richard Rothstein, respectively, have grabbed and maintained spots on the list as well.
“Nationally, it’s a surge of people thinking about systems that they’re ignorant around. The response to that ignorance was to go get some knowledge, which I think is the right response.”
—Jeannine A. Cook,
owner of Harriett’s Bookshop in Philadelphia
Some books topping these lists were written years and even decades ago, but they returned to bestseller lists recently.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander was published in 2010 but jumped to the top 10 the week after Floyd’s death and still remains in the top 20 as of the June 28 list. James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, released in 1963, showed up on Amazon’s most-sold list two weeks in a row.
A handful of newly popular books written by Black authors are biographies and memoirs.
Michelle Obama’s Becoming and Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime are the only two books in the top 20 that have been on the list for 50 weeks or more. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Bryan Stevenson and Austin Channing Brown all wrote memoirs that appeared and stayed in the top 20.
“Since the George Floyd protests began, I’ve been making a concerted effort to buy books by BIPOC authors from black-owned bookstores, namely Books and Crannies in Martinsville, Virginia,” said Sarah Lawson of Afton, Va. “I’ve tried to have a very genre-agnostic approach to the specific books I’m purchasing … because black stories are wide-ranging and cannot be told through one voice or one type of writing.”
“This is the work at hand. It starts with education. It starts with books. … I’ll take every person who wants these books. I’ll take every person that wants to join in this work.”
—Rick Griffith,
co-owner of Shop at MATTER in Denver
Thanks to the rise in e-books, particularly during the pandemic, we know that people aren’t just buying these books, they’re reading them, too.
Amazon tracks the average number of daily Kindle readers and Audible listeners. As anti-racist books took over the top 20 list of most purchased e-books on Amazon, several of those same books began appearing on the Amazon Charts top 20 most-read list.
Becoming was the most-read book for four weeks straight until the week of June 7, when White Fragility and How to Be an Antiracist knocked it to the third spot. Me and White Supremacy and So you want to talk about race entered the most-read list in the seventh and 16th spots.
The New Jim Crow and Between the World and Me joined the most-read list the following week.
Amazon’s most read books by week
Anti-racist book
Social justice or biographical book written by a black author
| Week of May 24 | Week of June 7 | Week of June 21 |
|---|---|---|
| 2Untamed | 2How to Be an Antiracist | 2How to Be an Antiracist |
| 4Can’t Hurt Me | 4Untamed | 4Untamed |
| 1Becoming | 1White Fragility | 1White Fragility |
| 3The Splendid and the Vile | 3Becoming | 3Becoming |
| 18The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck | 18The Decision | 18Maybe You Should Talk to Someone |
| 20Unfu*k Yourself | 20Never Split the Difference | 20The Decision |
| 6Atomic Habits | 6Can’t Hurt Me | 6Can’t Hurt Me |
| 9If You Tell | 9Atomic Habits | 9Educated |
| 10The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People | 10Talking to Strangers | 10Atomic Habits |
| 5Educated | 5The Splendid and the Vile | 5The Splendid and the Vile |
| 11The Great Influenza | 11If You Tell | 11If You Tell |
| 8Maybe You Should Talk to Someone | 8Educated | 8Born a Crime |
| 1312 Rules for Life | 13Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns | 13The New Jim Crow |
| 7Sapiens | 7Me and White Supremacy | 7Me and White Supremacy |
| 16Hidden Valley Road | 16So You Want to Talk About Race | 1612 Rules for Life |
| 15Born a Crime | 15Born a Crime | 15So You Want to Talk About Race |
| 12Talking to Strangers | 12Sapiens | 12Talking to Strangers |
| 14Never Split the Difference | 14Maybe You Should Talk to Someone | 14Sapiens |
| 17How to Win Friends and Influence People | 17The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People | 17The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People |
| 19Open Book | 1912 Rules for Life | 19Never Split the Difference |
The range of books dominating the lists shows an overall increased interest in literature — anti-racist or not — written by nonwhite authors.
Libraries, e-books filling in gaps in supply
The sudden increase in demand didn’t only catch bookstore owners by surprise. Publishers weren’t ready for the spike in interest, either.
“The case is the publisher didn’t expect it,” said VaLinda Miller, owner of Turning Page Bookshop in Charleston, S.C. “And because of covid … they’ve had to reprint and they have been reprinting and reprinting for weeks.”
The result was a backlog at many bookstores, including Frugal Bookstore in Boston, which sent a letter to customers asking for patience with fulfilling orders.
“I want you to come back and not just because of protest. I want you to come back because whatever you buy, whatever you come in and do, you do have an impact on this community.”
—VaLinda Miller,
owner of Turning Page Bookshop in Goose Creek, S.C.
Readers have also been swamping library websites, clamoring for e-books and audiobooks on similar topics. Overdrive, a digital reading distributor for libraries and schools, saw a significant increase in checkouts of e-books and audiobooks with anti-racism and social justice titles.
Demand increased as much as tenfold between May 26 and June 15 compared to the previous two weeks. Overall, the anti-racism category’s circulation increased an average of 297 percent in that time period.
U.S. public library anti-racism and social justice checkouts by day
Percent change in year-over-year e-book and audiobook checkouts
1,000%
800
600
May 25
George Floyd killed
in Minneapolis
400
200
0
May 11
June 22
Among both e-books and audiobooks, White Fragility, How to Be an Antiracist, Me and White Supremacy and The Hate U Give had the highest rates of library checkouts nationally. While these titles, along with others such as Between the World and Me and So You Want to Talk About Race are in high demand across the country, there are regional differences in library demand for other less-ubiquitous books.
Panorama Picks, an initiative by the Panorama Project and led by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, conducted an analysis for The Post to highlight these unique regional differences in library demand for anti-racism and social justice books. The analysis excludes the 10 most popular anti-racist and social justice titles, to surface those with the most unmet demand — titles that are popular but for which regional libraries do not have enough copies. Regional groupings align with American Booksellers Association groups, and some states can belong to more than one.
Anti-racism and social justice titles with unique demand by region
Based on library checkout data by region. Excludes top 10 most popular national titles.
Pacific Northwest
Midwest
• My Grandmother’s Hands
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
• The End of Policing
• Hood Feminism
• The Color of Law
• Fearing the Black Body
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
• My Grandmother’s Hands
• White Awake
• Radical Dharma
Together in the Cafeteria?
Together in the Cafeteria?
California
New England
• The End of Policing
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
• Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
• Sister Outsider
• The Compton Cowboys
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
• Rise of the Warrior Cop
• Sister Outsider
• My Grandmother’s Hands
• Hood Feminism
Together in the Cafeteria?
Together in the Cafeteria?
New Atlantic
Mountain Plains
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
• The Burning
• White Awake
• Be the Bridge
• The End of Policing
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
• Chocolate City
• Sister Outsider
• The End of Policing
• All About Love
Together in the Cafeteria?
Together in the Cafeteria?
Southeast
Great Lakes
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
• Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
• White Awake
• Hood Feminism
• Killing the Black Body
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
• Shame
• Hood Feminism
• White Guilt
• My Grandmother’s Hands
Together in the Cafeteria?
Together in the Cafeteria?
Hawaii
• The Color of Law
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
• America’s Original Sin
• Biased
• Heavy
Together in the Cafeteria?
Some titles, like Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? appear in multiple regions, while other titles are uniquely in-demand from libraries in specific regions. The Compton Cowboys is popular in California, while Chocolate City, focused on the District, is popular in the New Atlantic region. The Burning, about the Tulsa race massacre, is a title of interest in the Mountain Plains library region, where Oklahoma is located.
Several public libraries contacted by The Post gave specific examples of appetite for the books.
The Boston Public Library, which has a curated list of 20 Black Lives Matter titles on its home page, said they have had a 500 percent increase in demand for titles including White Fragility, So You Want to Talk About Race, Between the World and Me, Stamped from the Beginning and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
In the past few weeks, the wait list for some e-books topped 1,200 people. The library just spent more than $75,000 for an additional 2,000 copies of books related to Black Lives Matter and anti-racism.
The Los Angeles Public Library had more than 5,600 people waiting for copies of White Fragility two weeks ago, more than 4,000 waiting for access to How to Be an Antiracist and more than 1,000 apiece for Between the World and Me and The New Jim Crow.
The surge in interest went beyond major metro areas. Smaller libraries, from Savannah to Quincy, Mass., reported astronomical growth in interest as well. The Metropolitan Library System surrounding Oklahoma City reported that overall demand for anti-racist titles was up more than 600 percent.
To help libraries meet demand, Overdrive launched a new program, “Black Lives Matter: Community Read,” which makes some titles available for digital checkout without wait lists in the United States and Canada.
“Part of the do better is supporting black-owned businesses. I’m hopeful that beyond the education piece … that they go and continue to make commitments going forward, even when this may be out of the headlines.”
—Jeffrey Blair,
owner of EyeSeeMe Bookstore in St. Louis, Mo.
Black bookstore owners said they hope people continue to patronize their shops even as the protests inevitably dwindle.
“Before the end of May, it was always something I thought of as more of a plus if a restaurant or business was black-owned,” said Shelby Wenner, a D.C. resident. “Now it feels more urgent to seek those businesses out. Instead of buying from Amazon and having the book here the next day, I’d rather support something that means more to me and have the book come in a week.”
As time passes, though, some stores are seeing a decrease in demand.
“It’s bittersweet that it took black death and black trauma to get to this point,” McGilbert said. “This hasn’t happened before. Something has definitely shifted and I’m excited about it and I hope it continues. … You don’t know how long anti-racism is going to be trending.”
About this story
Book jacket photos provided by the publishers.
Sales data from Amazon Charts and the NYT Best Sellers list for Combined Print and E-Books Nonfiction.
Amazon’s Most Sold ranking is according to the number of copies sold and pre-ordered through Amazon.com, Audible.com, Amazon Books stores, and books read through digital subscription programs. The Most Read ranking is by the average number of daily Kindle readers and Audible listeners each week.
OverDrive’s analysis of book trends on anti-racism and social justice categories consisted of the following BISAC categories: Family & Relationships/Prejudice, Juvenile Fiction/Social Themes/Prejudice & Racism, Juvenile Nonfiction/Social Topics/Prejudice & Racism, Law/Civil Rights, Law/Discrimination, Political Science/Civil Rights, Social Science/Discrimination & Race Relations, Social Science/Race & Ethnic Relations, Young Adult Fiction/Social Themes/Prejudice & Racism, Young Adult Nonfiction/Social Topics/Prejudice & Racism.
Panorama Project’s analysis of book trends on anti-racist titles consisted of the following BISAC categories: Social Science/Ethnic Studies/American/African AmericanStudies, Social Science/Race & Ethnic Relations, Social Science/Discrimination, Biography & Autobirgraphy/Cultural, Ethnic & Regional/African American & Black, and Political Science/Civil Rights. A customized version of Panorama Picks was generated for this project using aggregated, anonymized U.S. public library ebook demand data provided by OverDrive, looking at the previously listed BISAC codes curated by the Post, across 8 ABA regions including Hawaii, examining 15 titles per region published at any time and available in print to libraries and booksellers—trade or self-published, and filtered to exclude the top 10 most in-demand titles in the U.S. The analysis measures public library activity from March 1 – April 21, 2020, encompassing the days right before the video of Ahmed Arbery’s murder went viral through Juneteenth weekend which is when the majority of “anti-racist” book lists were published and widely shared. In regions where Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? appeared twice due to multiple editions, it appears at its highest ranking, and an additional title was moved up.
Brittany Renee MayesBrittany Renee Mayes joined The Washington Post as a graphics reporter in June 2018. She previously worked at NPR on the visuals team as a news applications developer. Follow
Lauren TierneyLauren Tierney is a Graphics Reporter and cartographer at The Washington Post. Before joining the Post in 2017, she was a Graphics Editor at National Geographic Magazine. Follow
Dan KeatingDan Keating analyzes data for projects, stories, graphics and interactive online presentations. Follow
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