Afriware Books, Maywood, Ill., will close its physical bookstore October 20, with owner Nzingha Nommo choosing to focus on a hybrid model featuring online sales and pop-ups. In August she had launched a GoFundMe campaign to try to save the store, but she told NBC-5 Chicago that with more people turning to online shopping, she has been struggling to keep her doors open.
"What we think is convenient, what we think is the best cost, but what we are sacrificing by going that direction is cultural capital. That's what's being sacrificed," she said, adding that to survive she has decided the business must pivot. Her focus now "is getting the books she carries into school districts to reflect the student body and demographics of the students being served. She's already in talks with school districts like Proviso and Bellwood," NBC-5 noted.
Thirty years ago, Nommo quit her job as an electrical engineer to open Afriware Books in Oak Park before moving to Eisenhower Tower in Maywood. "I was definitely on the fast track I was making lots of money," she said about her career. "I quit my job to this--this passion." Her passion is to share and inspire others in the community to read and learn about Black history and culture and to find their identity.
Nommo is moving her business to "a shared virtual artsy office space in Oak Park called CrossFunction. Afriware can do events/pop-ups from there and around town. The bookseller will also "lean into our online offerings by continuing to upload our existing inventory and new titles," she noted in an update on the crowdfunding page, adding: "The long term goal is to reopen in a physical space, but for now we are stretching dollars as far as possible and are significantly decreasing our greatest expense: the rent."
"People are reaching in their pockets for their hard-earned dollar to share it with a bookstore that is amazing to me," she told NBC-5. "I feel thankful, appreciative, grateful for being in a place where the community just rising to the occasion."