Young’s Book Exchange is known as the first African-American bookstore. It was located at 135 West 135th Street in New York City.[1] It was founded in 1915 by George Young,[1] who was a Pullman porter during the 1900s, and became a bibliophile of African-American literature. His bookstore was known as the "Mecca of Literature" for African-American citizens.[1] This bookstore housed approximately 8,000–10,000 volumes.[2]

About the founder

George Young was born in Virginia to two slaves recently freed. He later married Ellen Thomas Young and had a daughter, Sara Elizabeth Young.[2] Young was a Pullman porter, hired to work on the railroads as a porter on sleeping cars. He was known to many different people all over the world, one friend being Frederick Douglass.[2] Young was also the national treasurer of the John Brown Memorial Association and the superintendent of St. Mark's Methodist Episcopal Church Sunday School.[2] Young died following a heart attack at the age of 65 in St. Luke's Hospital.[2]

Collection

Books by African authors included the older Letters of Ignatius Sancho and the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa. Beside these were more recent treatises: Duse Mohamed, In the Land of the Pharaohs; Sol T. Plaatje, Native Life in South Africa; J. E. Casely Hayford, Ethiopia Unbound, Gold Coast Native Institutions, and The Truth About the West African Land Question;[3] Dr. James Africanus Beale Horton, West African Countries and Peoples and A Vindication of the African Race; John Mensah Sarbah, Fanti Customary Laws; Bishop Samuel Adjai Crowther, Journal of an Expedition Up the Niger and Tshadda Rivers;[3] Prof. Benjamin Brawley of Howard University, A Social History of the American Negro; George W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America; William Wells Brown, The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements and The Rising Son;[3] W. E. B. Du Bois, The Negro; Joel Augustus Rogers, Superman to Man.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Rhodes-Pitts, Sharifa (2011-01-26). Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316017237.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "GEORGE YOUNG DEAD; HAD BOOK EXCHANGE; Former Pullman Porter Owned Volumes on Negro---Active for Betterment of Race". timesmachine.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2019-11-04.
  3. 1 2 3 Moore, Richard B. (2017-07-12). "Africa Conscious Harlem". Americans from Africa. Routledge. pp. 385–404. doi:10.4324/9781315082493-25. ISBN 9781315082493.
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