Sister's Uptown Bookstore and Cultural Center in New York City is raising funds to help stave off closure, Patch.com reported.
Store owner Janifer Wilson, who opened Sister's in 2000, has a fundraiser scheduled for Friday evening. Called the Mid-Summer Party, the event will feature games, music, a DJ, and refreshments, with a suggested donation of $25.
The 25-year-old Black-owned bookstore has fallen five months behind on rent and has come to a tenuous month-to-month agreement with the building owners. Wilson told Patch that the store's financial difficulties are the result of declines in book sales and foot traffic that have been ongoing for several years, with gentrification, the Covid-19 pandemic, and competition with online retailers all contributing.
Wilson emphasized the importance of Sister's, which hosts plenty of cultural events and provides free books for children, in the current political and social climate. "Our history is trying to be eradicated, between banned books and closing institutions," she said. "They are just trying to write us off, as if we don't exist or we don't belong here. So, I'm holding on--I'm holding on for dear life."
Beyond raising funds for the store, Wilson is also considering ways Sister's can evolve with the time and "move into another dimension of literacy."
"I just feel like the legacy that has been built can't go away, because it's not about Janifer Wilson, it's about the community," she said.