Data
Black-owned bookstores listed on newBWS
newBWS lists 437 Black-owned bookstores, updated September 6, 2026.
424 in the United States and 13 outside it. 291 with a storefront, 58 online only, 88 mobile or pop-up.
What the count means
The count is the number of live listings in the newBWS directory whose category is bookstore. It includes stores with a permanent location, online-only sellers, and mobile or pop-up sellers, each labeled by its presence type. It is a count of listings on newBWS, not an estimate of every Black-owned bookstore that exists. Listings come from AALBC’s bookstore list, the National Association of Black Bookstores directory, and each store’s own website, and any store can be nominated or claimed by its owner.
Storefronts and shipping, from newBWS data
60 of the 437 listed stores have a verified Bookshop.org storefront recorded on newBWS, and 226 are recorded as shipping to customers. A Bookshop.org storefront is recorded only when it was found on the store’s own site and resolves to that store’s page.
By state, from newBWS data
Every state and the District of Columbia, including the 9 with no listed store. A zero is a gap in the directory, not a fact about the state; each one links to the nomination form with the state filled in.
Context from NAB2, cited as theirs
The National Association of Black Bookstores reports, in its State of the Black Bookstore Report (read 2026-09-06), 306 Black-owned bookstores in the United States, 36% of them operating without a permanent brick-and-mortar location, about 8% of independent bookstores in the country, and 14 states with none. Those are NAB2’s figures under NAB2’s definition, published alongside its national directory. They are not the newBWS count above and the two are not combined anywhere on this page.
Methodology
- Sources
- Discovery through AALBC’s bookstore list and the National Association of Black Bookstores directory; details for each listing from the store’s own website. No description is copied from either source. Each listing records which source discovered it.
- What counts as a store
- A business that sells books under its own name, with a permanent location, online only, or as a mobile or pop-up seller. Book clubs, schools, foundations, and distributors are held for review rather than listed.
- What is excluded
- Closed stores; duplicate entries for one physical location; chains whose ownership is publicly documented elsewhere, held for review; and any store whose source row carried no way to check it.
- Verification
- A Verified badge appears only after an owner claims the listing and confirms ownership. Nothing on this page implies a store has verified with newBWS unless its listing says so. Store websites are re-checked monthly and a failing link is flagged for review, never removed automatically.
- Update cadence
- The counts on this page are read from the directory every five minutes. The date shown is the most recent change to any listed store. New stores arrive through nominations, owner claims, and periodic source reconciliations.
- Export
- Download the listed stores as CSV: name, city, state, country, presence type, storefront URL where one exists, and the newBWS listing URL. Nothing else.
See the stores themselves on the Black Bookshelf.