Black-owned bookstore reopens in West Town, celebrates Juneteenth: ‘Centered around the culture’

CHICAGO (WLS) — Small Black-owned businesses are spreading the wealth this Juneteenth holiday.

Semicolon, a Black-owned bookstore in West Town, is reopening its doors with new surprises for customers.

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It was more than just a re-grand opening of Semicolon Bookstore, it was celebration of how far Black-owned businesses have come and curated spaces where creativity meets collaboration.

Semicolon was reimagined, revamped and ready to open.

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Last time, owner Danielle Moore said Semicolon Bookstore was giving auntie’s house vibes. Now, it’s her house, and something she intentionally created to be a space where customers ask questions, browse and find the unexpected.

“I’m happy to be back to what I said I wanted,” Moore said. “We don’t have to look or feel like other book shopping spaces, because we’re not.”

On this Juneteenth holiday, the bookstore on West Chicago Avenue is where she unapologetically makes the rules.

“About 60% of our shop is banned in certain parts of the country,” Moore said. “We are open to liberation and whatever it takes to get someone to that point.”

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Keeping Black culture and history alive goes beyond the bookshelves as Moore features other Black-owned businesses in her store, like a selling a cup of coffee from Muse Coffee Studio.

“The place is very inclusive,” Muse Coffee Studio owner George Davis said. “It’s for everybody, but it’s centered around the art, centered around the culture, and that raised me.”

Just down the street, the Studio is about handmade syrups, endless galleries of Black expression and a place that feels like home.

“We are here to provide peace, and so we hope that that rubs off the people kind of can feel it,” Davis said.

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Davis is on the same mission as his friends at Semicolon, to leave a mark on every customer that comes through the door, and he does just that.

“There’s not a time that I don’t come into this space where I don’t leave fulfilled and with something that I didn’t know, that I needed,” Muse Coffee Studio customer Hollee Mangrum-Willis said.

It’s that feeling of joy and validation that the Black-owned business owners want to permeate past store doors.

“A lot of people come in and cry, or they say, like, ‘I’ve never felt so seen,'” Moore said. “That’s my heart that they’ve seen.”

Moore told ABC7 she brought in an award-winning portrait photographer to take photos of customers with their favorite book, and she also hosted a book swap, where customers could swap books for something they have never read.