The day after her performance at the Peace Ball on Thursday, Solange Knowles stopped by Sankofa Video Books & Cafe, a bookstore on Georgia Avenue to meet with some local fans and purchase 250 books.
She originally wanted to plan a speaking event at Howard University, but when she found out the school was closed for the inauguration, she asked the bookstore if it would host instead. The book giveaway was announced on her Instagram just a few hours before and in no time, hundreds of people, mostly from Howard, flocked to the store.
“I think that now more than ever we have to invest in community and fellowship,” Solange said as she greeted the crowd.
One of the owners of Sankofa, Shirikiana Gerima, says that Solange’s decision to come to the store had symbolic meaning for members of the black community as it faces an uncertain future in this new Trump era. Sankofa has been open since 1997 and specializes in books about people of African descent around the world.
#Solange stopped by black-owned #SankofaBookstoreAndCafe where she shared words of wisdom and bought 250 books for those in attendance. pic.twitter.com/xkzITW1Z9F
— Crystal Johnson (@Crystal1Johnson) January 22, 2017
“For Solange to feel like [Sankofa] is a touchstone for when times get challenging is rewarding for us,” Gerima says. “We hope to be the kind of place for anybody who needs to remember that what we’re facing is not new, and that there are people who have stood up to harder things. They’ve left messages and symbols and signs about how to go about this kind of thing. They made it, and we can make it.”
Among the books Solange bought for attendees were Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Nearly all of the store’s James Baldwin collection was bought out.
Solange said one of her favorites on Sankofa’s shelves was Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles Blow.