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| Jeannine Cook at Josephine's | |
Jeannine Cook, owner of Harriett's Bookshop in Philadelphia, Pa., and Ida's Bookshop in Collingswood, N.J., is currently in the process of launching Josephine's Bookshop, a pop-up shop at 5 Rue de Medicis in Paris, France. The store is scheduled to open tomorrow, Bastille Day, July 14. Cook will close Harriett's for the summer while she's in Paris; Ida's will remain open.
"It's a revolutionary bookstore, why not open it on a revolutionary day?" Cook told Lori L. Tharps of the Read, Write, & Create blog, which reported that "Cook is bringing her brand of revolutionary, Black-women centered bookstore to the City of Lights" with "a pop-up bookstore in Paris honoring the legendary entertainer, expat and spy, Josephine Baker."
Cook has been a teacher, student and traveler in Paris, and "every time she was there, she felt a pull to come back and do something meaningful," Tharp wrote. Baker's life story and identity as a Black American woman who found her freedom in France intrigued Cook, and then she learned that Baker had volunteered to be a spy to support the war effort.
"Josephine was a spy while she was still performing," Cook said. "She was under attack, but she was also serving as protector for the people of France. Like so many Black women, she was feminine and she was warrior. At the same time."
Cook decided she wanted to pay homage to Baker with a pop-up shop, while creating "a space in Paris to inspire conversations and community around the themes that Baker's life exemplifies, like freedom and liberation. And most importantly, she wants Josephine's, like her sister shops in the United States, to be a community space to celebrate Black American culture," Tharps noted.
Josephine's, which will feature a selection of books, the majority in English, about Baker and the people and places she influenced throughout her lifetime, "is not going to be your average bookstore. Altar, exhibit, gathering space, it will be all of these things," Tharps wrote, adding that Cook said the space will be a curated experience that combines multimedia elements, books, and historical artifacts in honor of Baker's life and times.
Cook also noted that she already has plans in motion for her next venture, a pop-up shop in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2024.