Black-owned children’s bookstore in North Carolina is closing over alleged threats
By Megan Cerullo, CBS
The owner of a Black-owned children’s bookstore in Raleigh, North Carolina, said she is closing its doors less than a year after it opened because of violent threats.
The store, called Liberation Station Bookstore, was the first of its kind in the community, owner Victoria Scott-Miller wrote in an Instagram post announcing that it is shuttering its first and only retail location.
She described how challenging it was to reconcile “the immense joy” she experienced serving the community with “threats of violence,” including death threats and hate mail that she believed imperiled the store and put her family’s safety at risk.
In a particularly startling incident, she wrote on Instagram, a caller detailed what her son was wearing while he was alone at the shop, she said.
“For the past 8-months we’ve struggled with the immense joy of serving our community and the many blessings we’ve received that allowed us to continue powering this work forward and our experiences with the unsettling reality of facing threats of violence and emotional harm from those who remain nameless and faceless,” Scott-Miller wrote on Instagram.
Learn why some Black institutions receive threats.
Comments Are Welcome
Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.
Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.
See our full Comments Policy here.