© 2024 Wyoming Public Media
800-729-5897 | 307-766-4240
Wyoming Public Media is a service of the University of Wyoming
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Transmission & Streaming Disruptions

North Carolina's first Black-owned children's bookstore opens in downtown Raleigh

Customers shop inside Liberation Station Bookstore, North Carolina’s first Black-owned children’s
bookstore, which opened on June 17, 2023 in downtown Raleigh. (Kafi Iman Robinson Pettiford)
Customers shop inside Liberation Station Bookstore, North Carolina’s first Black-owned children’s bookstore, which opened on June 17, 2023 in downtown Raleigh. (Kafi Iman Robinson Pettiford)

Victoria Scott-Miller opened the first Black-owned children’s bookstore in North Carolina last weekend, called Liberation Station.

The new brick-and-mortar store opened its doors on Saturday in downtown Raleigh. Liberation Station started as a pop-up in 2019 after she took her sons to a national chain bookstore to find books with characters that looked like him.

“When we went to the bookstore as a family of four, we thought that it would be an easy, in and out,” she says. “But unfortunately, it would be a scavenger hunt that would take us nearly 4 hours to walk out with just a handful of books.”

After hours of searching, the family left with only a few books. As their son walked out of the store discouraged, Scott-Miller and her husband considered how they could make a space for their kids to see themselves on the shelves.

“Our children, they need room to be able to dream,” she says. “We walked out inspired to create the thing that needed to be seen.”

Wondering what’s on the shelves at Liberation Station? Scott-Miller shared some book recommendations.

Owner Victoria Scott-Miller and her son, Emerson, cut the ribbon at the grand opening of her Liberation Station Bookstore. North Carolina’s first Black-owned children’s bookstore opened June 17, 2023 in downtown Raleigh. (Phillip Loken)

Book recommendations from Victoria Scott-Miller


Samantha Raphelson produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Julia Corcoran. Raphelson also adapted it for the web.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Enjoying stories like this?

Donate to help keep public radio strong across Wyoming.