Maati Jone Primm did not envision herself as a bookstore owner, even though Marshall’s Music and Bookstore, the oldest operating Black-owned bookstore in the United States, has been in her family for decades. The bookstore, originally founded in 1938, was purchased by Primm’s grandmother, a college-educated woman who was the first in her family to be born outside of slavery.
Located in Jackson, MS, often referred to as the “Blackest City in America,” Marshall’s is situated within the historic Farish Street district. This downtown neighborhood was once a hub for Black businesses and offered refuge to Black Mississippians during the Jim Crow period until the 1970s, when businesses in the district began to decline. Elsewhere in the city, Black people would have to hold their heads down or get off the sidewalk if a White person approached them, but that was not the case on Farish Street.
“Everybody convened on Farish Street. It provided a life,” Primm told NPQ. “You could have fun. You could visit a doctor. You could come to the bookstore and be educated. It was difficult to have books. You couldn’t go to a White library and take out books, or even touch them, or even sit there.”
The Importance of Black Bookstores
Though many of the businesses are no longer in existence, Marshall’s remains, and Primm attributes its longevity largely to the longtime support of customers. She says that there are customers who came to the bookstore as children with their grandparents, who now bring their own grandchildren to the store…