Shrine Bookstores Celebrate 35 Years of Service to African-American Communities

This month, the Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Centers and Bookstores began a yearlong celebration commemorating its 35 years as a vital repository of African-American culture. Headquartered in Detroit, the stores were founded by the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church (PAOCC), a socially conscious religious institution, which describes itself, in part, as "seeking to establish a system of Black institutions that can meet the growing needs of a Black community in crisis."

"The 1970 opening of the first nonprofit Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center and Bookstore in Detroit was a contribution to the strengthening of African-American people's identification with the Black experience, Rukiya Curvey-Johnson, director of the Shrine Centers, recently told BTW. Over the years, the bookstore has grown to include outlets in Houston and Atlanta and one of the largest selections of books and educational materials related to the African-American experience in the world. The Atlanta location is 30 years old, and the Houston store is 20. All three stores are located in or near branches of the PAOCC and are staffed by church volunteers.

According to Curvey-Johnson, "These centers are premier resources for emerging and established talents from the African Diaspora." Located in predominantly Black, urban areas, Curvey-Johnson said, "[they] take pride in helping people get exposure to the Black experience from around the world, through art, literary, and scholarly texts. A lot of information is available online through www.shrinebookstore.com."

Each of the Shrine bookstores regularly hosts educational workshops, history classes, book signings, poetry readings, and community forums. The Atlanta location was the first to create an African Holocaust Museum, an extensive collection of documents, photos, and memorabilia detailing the horrors of the African slave trade. All three stores now have installations.

The centers value the importance of an aesthetic environment and feature artwork and crafts. The Detroit Shrine store offers the Karamu Art Gallery, containing an extensive art collection from people of color in Africa, India, the Americas, and the Caribbean Islands.

"About 60 percent of our stores' income comes from books," Curvey-Johnson told BTW. "The rest is from hand-crafted jewelry, artist prints, greeting cards, gift items, apparel, and African-American collectibles. At the two larger stores, Detroit and Houston, we provide African-American wedding consultation for couples who want to include some kind of African style into their ceremony and for those who want a completely Afro-centric wedding. We also offer genealogical workshops.

"At the Detroit store, we probably have the largest selection of Black children's books in the Midwest. In Houston, in the 25,000-square-foot space -- it's a former bowling alley -- the chapel, gallery space, and bookstore are all in there, with a Black Inventor's Display -- an exhibit of replicas of inventions patented and produced by African Americans."

Special events commemorating the 35th anniversary year, which will run into 2006, include visits from some very high-profile authors, such as Walter Mosley, Sharon Flake, and the model Iman. Curvey-Johnson, who has been the center's director for two years, told BTW that this anniversary will mark the Shrine's launch of a major literacy initiative.

"We know that 47 percent of adult Detroiters are functionally illiterate," Curvey-Johnson said. "Every site should have some literacy support organizations to help combat this problem. In conjunction with the anniversary celebrations, we are sponsoring a short story contest, holding book fairs, and helping local schools build their libraries. We want the Shrine Centers to be distribution points for literacy -- what better place for that than a bookstore." --Nomi Schwartz