Jackson home to oldest Black-owned bookstore in the nation

By WAPT Staff

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    JACKSON, Mississippi (WAPT) — Jackson is home to the oldest Black-owned bookstore in North America.

Marshall’s Music and Book Store in the heart of downtown Jackson is a family business that opened in 1938.

“We’ve been able to make it through Jim Crow, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam. We have been through it all — civil rights movement, Black power movement, Black Lives Matter movement — we’ve always been here,” said store owner Maati Primm.

The quaint store on the almost empty Farish Street has shelves stacked high with books, music and everything in between. The walls are also plastered with photos of unsung African American heroes with roots in Mississippi.

“Everybody in, they say, ‘I don’t know this, and this is my history, and I should know it.’ I’m like, ‘Yes, we should,'” Primm said.

Primm is the third-generation owner of the store. She believes in teaching people about the past, saying that Black history didn’t begin with slavery.

“Go back past slavery. Go back into Africa. Go back into ancient Africa and see the great side of it, such as the University of Timbuktu,” she said.

Her newfound hope now lies in opening a school. Primm believes that the way to stop the surge of violent youth crime is to teach children about hope.

“We can move and destroy a system that tell them that they’re not good enough, that they will never amount to anything, and we can exchange that system for one of encouragement and shows them and proves to them that people just like them have done great things,” Primm said.

Pastor Louis Wilcher of the Greater Pearlie Grove Missionary Baptist Church first opened the store 85 years ago on the corner of Farish and Oakley streets.

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