The owners of Black Pearl Books want to make sure readers can find all the books that were banned by school districts in Texas last school year.
鈥淚f an entity is going to try to restrict access to a title or a book, we are going to try to figure out how to make sure people have access to that book,鈥� said Eric Brooks, who owns the North Austin bookstore with his wife, Katrina.
Texas school districts pulled during the 2023-2024 school year, according to PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression.
Americans don't like to be told what to do, Eric said, so having a banned books section makes good business sense.
鈥淲e are free to do whatever we want,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hen books are banned, generally, you see sales of said books go up.鈥�
Access for everyone
The Brooks founded Black Pearl Books in 2019 after moving to Austin from California. But they didn鈥檛 move to Austin to start a bookstore. In fact, they weren鈥檛 sure what they would do here, only that they felt called to the city by God.
鈥淚t was definitely an act of obedience and a faith-based move,鈥� Katrina said. 鈥淲hen we were leaving, my friends would be like, 鈥榃ell, why are you going?鈥� And my honest answer was, 鈥業 don't know.鈥欌��
Around that time, Katrina started to realize the impact reading was having on her own children.
鈥淲hen my kids were young, there was a concerted effort to find characters that looked like them, to find protagonists, to find stories that they could identify with,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd so we spent lots of time in libraries, in bookstores.鈥�
She noticed her children鈥檚 vocabulary and critical-thinking skills often outpaced their peers, and she knew it came from their exposure to books.
"That was really kind of the seed for Black Pearl Books,鈥� Katrina said. 鈥淓veryone needs to have access [to books].鈥�
Black Pearl Books started out as an online store that did pop-up events. Sales grew during during the pandemic, especially during the movement for racial justice in 2020. For a while, the Brooks shared space with 10,000 Villages, then they moved into their own storefront on Burnet Road in 2022.
The store is one of only a handful of Black-owned bookstores in Texas.
Now, Katrina said, she understands why the family felt called to the city.
鈥淏lack Pearl Book was the reason that we are in Austin, because this would not have happened anywhere else.鈥�
More than a bookstore
"Bookstores are community hubs,鈥� Eric said.
"Masquerading as retailers," Katrina added.
Over the years, the Brooks have expanded the idea of the role their store can play in Austin. In addition to selling books, they host author talks promoted as more of a give-and-take between with the audience.
鈥淚t truly is more about a community conversation," Katrina said.
The store also gives away books for free and has a section of used books called 鈥淩efurbished Reads.鈥�
鈥淵ou have some very modern, contemporary things that are published now that people picked up two months ago, read it and donated it back," Katrina said.
All the proceeds from used-book sales go to the nonprofit connected with the store, Put It in a Book. The name refers to a time in the U.S. when Black literacy was punishable by death.
"The saying goes that if you want to hide something from a Black person," Eric said, "put it in a book."
鈥淥ur goal is to completely flip that,鈥� he adds. 鈥淲e want to put our stories in books and share them with each other. The nonprofit has the same mission as the for-profit business, which is to promote diversity, inclusion and representation through literature.鈥�
Put It in a Book helps bring authors to Title I schools. It donates books to a women鈥檚 prison and partners with other organizations to read to third-graders.
鈥淲e bring enough copies [of a book] for every student in that classroom to take home,鈥� Eric says. 鈥淪o not only are we performing this act [reading] that we want them to do, we're also providing them with something to build their personal library.鈥�
The nonprofit works with Austin high schools to support students who want to start their own banned book clubs.
"Every single high school wanted to participate," Katrina said.
Both the store and nonprofit have the same goal, Eric said.
鈥淲e wait for people to make a thing equal,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e have to figure out how to create this equitable world that we wish or that we desire.鈥�
Miles Bloxson produced the audio for this story.
Listen to the full interview by hitting play at the top of this page or find this episode and more of the Black Austin Matters podcast on, or wherever you get your podcasts.
