Dear Booksellers,

During this painful time, books, bookstores, and the role you play in your communities are all more important than ever. Yesterday’s bestseller list was evidence of that. It was the highest day of sales in IndieCommerce history and was driven by books by black authors and books on antiracism, black history, conversations about race, and parenting for an antiracist world. On Friday, I paraphrased Eleanor Roosevelt: It isn’t enough to talk about anti-racism or believe in it. We must work at it. So what do we do first?

Think about what your customers need from you right now:

• Antiracist resources
• Children’s books with positive images and stories about African Americans
• Antiracist book clubs

Think about what your booksellers of color and, more specifically, what your black booksellers need from you right now:

• Acknowledgment of people’s pain
• Time off to process, grieve, rest
• Mental health resources
• Therapy support:
  • Therapy for Black Girls
  • BEAM Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective
  • Depressed While Black
  • Melanin & Mental Health

Think about what your team in general needs from you right now:

• Authentic, compassionate communication
• Time off to protest, or support for protest groups
• A safe work environment

And think about ways to support local black businesses:

• Order from black-owned restaurants
  
• Support businesses that support black lives

It’s unacceptable that this HuffPost piece I wrote six years ago in response to events in Ferguson is still relevant today. But I am hopeful — reading this bestseller list and seeing community responses across the country — that this moment in history will be a turning point. May our bookselling community be part of that change.

ABA is here for all of you. Please reach out if there is anything we can help with. We are an incredibly creative, resilient, supportive industry. We’ll get through this, together.

Best,
Allison