On the evening of May 27, 2015, Charnice Milton was on the bus, heading to her home in Ward 7’s Benning Heights neighborhood. A journalist working for Capital Community News — which publishes the local news outlets Hill Rag, East of the River, and MidCity DC — Milton had just left a neighborhood meeting in Eastern Market. As she stepped off the bus at the intersection of Naylor and Good Hope roads SE, gunfire rang out. Milton, a 27-year-old alumna of Ball State and Syracuse universities, was struck by a bullet that police believe was intended for someone else. By morning, she was dead.
Four years later, on the anniversary of her death, a new community bookstore opened in her honor inside the new Busboys and Poets restaurant on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE in historic Anacostia. Welcomed by residents and activists, the Charnice Milton Community Bookstore has arrived just in time for summer. Occupying a cozy corner of the restaurant, the shop specializes in books written by and about black people.
Until last February, when MahoganyBooks opened in the nearby Anacostia Arts Center, Ward 8 had been without a bookstore for more than 20 years. With the arrival of a second shop, some community members hope the added visibility will encourage more people — and particularly more children — to read.
Kymone Freeman, a community activist and co-founder of We Act Radio, organized the last month’s grand opening — which was sponsored by the Mayor’s Office on African American Affairs — and rallied supporters to donate books to the new Charnice Milton Community Bookstore. The new store, owned by Busboys and Poets but created in partnership with We Act Radio, will sell new and used books, although children’s titles will be available free to kids. Freeman stressed the importance of getting the right books — ones that have been cherry-picked by their elders — into the hands of young people.
In an interview, Freeman recited a quote from Charnice Milton that is now etched the pages of an open book sculpture on the front counter of the bookstore: “I want to write stories that matter in the community where I grew up.” Artist Stephanie Mercedes used melted bullet casings to create the metal book sculpture in Milton’s honor.
“We’re here … to make books more accessible to young people and to encourage literacy and a culture of reading,” Freeman said. “We put kids in front of a TV and let them go. No, we need to put a bunch of books around them and let them go. And we need to curate those books.”
Freeman, who began his quest to open the bookstore two years ago, noted the dearth of bookshops on the eastern side of the city even with the openings this year and last.
“It’s only two bookstores in all of Ward 8,” he said. “Mahogany was the first bookstore to open in Ward 8 in 25 years. This one is the second. And there’s still zero bookstores in Ward 7.”
Francine Milton, Charnice’s mother, and Kenneth McClenton, her stepfather, attended the grand opening, which drew about 60 community members. Francine told the crowd that Charnice was never without a book and would typically read between 95 and 100 books every summer when she was in elementary school.
Books were “something that helped her to transform,” said Francine Milton. “They helped her to grow. … So we want to see people in the neighborhood reading so that the kids will see the adults reading and want to read and grow from it.”
An ecosystem of books
Even before the opening of two new bookstores, other opportunities to indulge in literature have existed for a long time on the east side of the city. DC Public Library branches have anchored area neighborhoods for decades. The Anacostia, Francis A. Gregory, Dorothy Height (Benning), Parklands-Turner, William Lockridge (Bellevue) and Deanwood branches have all been modernized in recent years and offer a number of options for young readers and adult readers alike to explore books, periodicals and digital texts. Earlier this year, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at the newly renovated Capitol View branch in Ward 7.
But a bookstore where people can purchase books that are specifically about black and brown people and written by black and brown people is a more nuanced venture. And it is an arduous task for a small business to compete with online retailers, especially when gentrification drives up the cost of renting brick-and-mortar establishments. Over the past 20 years, several black-owned bookstores have faltered and closed in the District, including Pyramid, Sisterspace, and Drum and Spear. Currently Sankofa Video Books & Cafe, a black-owned bookshop in Northwest, is fighting to hang onto its spot on Georgia Avenue with the help of a tax abatement.
Congress Heights resident Kesha Lee — founder of #ward8reads, an organization that elevates literacy and book access in Southeast DC — said she is thrilled to see another bookstore open in the area.
“This is such a welcome addition to the community,” said Lee. “It honors a young woman who was living out her craft and her dream. And it elevates the unsung hero. This is an addition to the ecosystem of books that elevates literacy in general in Southeast.”
The need is great, she said. During the 2017-2018 school year, just 4 percent of Anacostia High School students and 3 percent of Ballou High School students met or exceeded expectations for grade-level learning standards in English language arts and literacy on two different performance assessments.
She noted that people in the community are always hungry for more books. “In Ward 8 Reads we get so much excitement from community members,” said Lee, whose group maintains a network of Little Free Libraries including the ones at the Anacostia and Congress Heights Metro stations. “We love books. We love literature. We especially love books that feature black people that have relevant stories. I’m excited that we have another opportunity for people to access books and have a choice.”
Courtney Davis, founder of the East of the River Book Festival, credits Freeman with getting the bookstore off the ground. “I’m a supporter of Kymone, and he supports the book festival,” she said. “I’m just really excited that it has come to fruition. He has put forth so much effort in making people aware that we live in a literacy desert. So any opportunity that we have to write our own stories and read books is definitely going to be beneficial to the residents of our community.”
Davis, who has a doctorate in special education, is the founder of Homeroom #104, an online community that supports parents, teachers and authors focusing on literacy and learning. She is also the author of two children’s books — A Is for Anacostia and S Is for Southside — that are available online and that she’s hoping to get onto the shelves of the Charnice Milton Community Bookstore.
The Charnice Milton Community Bookstore is open during regular business hours at Busboys and Poets in Anacostia at 2004 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE
I have been trying over a year to donate some books in honor of Charnice Milton since i read about her in the Informer.