“Raise the Rent” Party


Dear Collingswood Friends & Families—

I am Jeannine A. Cook, the shopkeeper of Ida’s Bookshop at 734 Haddon Ave.

Our bookshop celebrates women authors, artists, and activists under the guiding light of historic heroine, Ida B. Wells.

Ms. Ida was a turn-of-the-century author, artist, and activist who worked tirelessly on issues of community development—specifically focusing her career on ending lynching with the power of her pen.

Inspired by Ms. Ida, I write this letter to you with the power of my pen.

Our shop has existed in Collingswood for three years this coming February and served thousands of books to local, national and even international families and friends from the Farmer’s Market to Clover Fest from Mayfair to the Book Fest—where I actually showed up on a horse to interview a horse jockey.

Now in our third year and with increased pressure on small businesses, especially bookshops, we recognize that innovation is crucial for our continued existence.

In contrast to large corporations, small businesses contribute to the social fabric of communities, providing unique goods, services, and experiences while promoting self-sufficiency.

We even had a realtor bring a new family by to ensure them, “Ida’s Bookshop is just another example of sacred spaces that make starting a life in Collingswood special.”

Embracing our position as a local bookshop we ensure:

  • that books have a viable future in the lives of children like those we host on field trips and Mommy and Me visits;

  • wealth circulates within the community as we hire local young people to operate the shops—including Aunye, Maya, Elijah, Brianna, Keiko, Serenity, Messiah, Jenesis and Asia;

  • and we continue donations to local organizations like BookSmiles that deliver free books to children;

  • hosting local and national authors like Jo Piazzo, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Sannii Crespina-flores, Christine Pride, Zach Wright, Shawn R. Jones, Anita Grace Brown, Seve Torres and Salamishah Tillet to name a few;

  • hosting musicians from vibraphone to violin, literacy bands and djs to songbirds and drummers, choirs, a keyboard playing harmonica player who was only 17.

This pursuit of the “independent” in independent bookshop is not merely a financial endeavor but a means to choose how we want to strengthen the social fabric.

Small businesses often face an uphill battle against corporate giants and multi-million dollar developers, grappling with challenges like limited resources and intense competition. The struggle for survival and growth is not just economic but also a fight to preserve the uniqueness and character of local communities.

To address this issue, we started a bootstrapped crowdfunding campaign and event series called “Raise The Rent.” In response to our landlord’s decision to Raise the Rent, we are seeking $23,000 in community investment to pay the rent upfront for a year so we can strategize and plan a sustained future for Ida’s Bookshop within Collingswood without the additional stressors of making ends meet from month to month—our overall goal is to purchase a building in Collingswood and stick around for generations.

Quiet as it’s kept, we have our eye on 566 Haddon Ave. but we’ve only just had initial conversations about what that could look like and what that journey would entail—but imagine a wellness center meets a bookshop cafe.

Maybe??

What we do see for sure is a future where collaboration between organizations and institutions will create sustainability. Remember we do this work in the face of book bans and a future that promises one or two large corporations could someday control the production and distribution of almost all books if we don’t decide otherwise now.

In parallels between book bans, economic injustice and historical lynching, it is essential to recognize the profound impact of both on intellectual freedom and human rights, echoing the sentiments of Ida B. Wells in her anti-lynching advocacy.

Just as lynching was a violent tool used to suppress and control, book bans and bookshop closings operate as a subtle but equally insidious form of intellectual oppression. Both mechanisms aim to stifle dissent, erase perspectives, and maintain a status quo that perpetuates harm.

Ida B. Wells, through her courageous anti-lynching work, understood the power of knowledge in dismantling systemic oppression. Similarly, book bans restrict access to diverse narratives, limiting the ability to challenge prevailing ideologies. By acknowledging the parallel between these forms of oppression, we highlight the importance of preserving intellectual freedom and honoring the legacy of pioneers like Ida B. Wells who fought against such injustices.

Another analogy we see in our work is the parallel between renting and sharecropping. In the fundamental absence of ownership and control, we see the vulnerability that individuals face in these arrangements.

In both scenarios, tenants and sharecroppers lack true ownership of the land or property they inhabit. This absence of ownership translates into a limited ability to shape our destinies, make long-term investments, or build generational relationships. The control over crucial decisions often rests in the hands of landlords or landowners who often could care less about the daily goings on of the community where their tenants “work the land,” mirroring the power dynamics prevalent in sharecropping arrangements.

Emphasizing this analogy is crucial in shedding light on the challenges faced by business owners without property ownership, underscoring the need for policies and initiatives that empower individuals to move beyond mere occupancy to ownership. By doing so, we address the root issues associated with both renting and sharecropping, advocating for a shift toward more equitable and empowering long term business development strategy.

In contrast to renting or sharecropping, owning a building in Collingswood provides a sense of permanence for Ida’s. It opens avenues for us to build generational relationships and foster economic stability that transcends immediate circumstances. Land ownership enables us to make long-term investments, engage in sustainable environmental practices, and establish a strong foundation.

This is why we are hosting design sessions that ask not just what your local bookshop can do for you, but also what you are can commit to doing for your local bookshop—from volunteering to landscaping from deliveries to authors chats, how do we sustain this institution together? Are you a contractor? A banker? A marketing guru? We need you.

At its core, community organizing brings people together, amplifying their collective voice to address shared concerns. Ida B. Wells, through her anti-lynching campaigns, showcased the transformative potential of communities united against injustice. By organizing and mobilizing, communities can effect change at both local and systemic levels.

This unity not only provides a platform for shared goals but also builds resilience in the face of challenges. Ida B. Wells demonstrated that through organized efforts, communities can challenge oppressive systems, demand justice, and bring about tangible transformation.

Community organizing acts as a catalyst, empowering us all to actively participate in shaping our neighborhood’s destiny.

It is our hope that through this comprehensive approach, drawing on inspiration from our namesake Ida B. Wells, we can be an example of the change we wish to see in the world.

But like Ida said, “before the people can ACT, they must KNOW.”

Now you know.

Thank you,

Jeannine A. Cook

Ida’s Bookshop

info@idasbookshop.com

My Sisters Gift Shop

This design for the Rosenbach is dedicated to the sisterhood between Rebecca and Miriam Rosenbach. Using the same 19th century furniture style but in pastel as a stark contrast to the other exhibits, this would be designed to feel feminine and soft with custom William Morris style wallpaper that includes their signatures as design elements. It is said that after the two sisters were both sick unto death, that older sister and caretaker of the younger sister refused to die first. She waited patiently for her sister in life and into death. Ase.

Princess Tam Tam


I walk into Princeton University’s Berlind Theater on Mother’s Day and a painting of Ms. Josephine Baker hangs high above the blue-tinted stage. Ms. Baker never dances out with her long lanky legs and toothy smile, (like one would hope) but her presence is felt through that painting. She is the sun in the sky of the set illuminating the characters (and character flaws) in Pearl Cleage’s, Blues for an Alabama Sky. 

The current production of the story is being directed by Nicole A. Watson with precision and grace. She channels Ms. Baker in her stage direction—creating a dance of methodical movements between actors and audiences.

I am NOT surprised to see the painting of Ms. Josephine Baker. This is the last sign I need. I know folks think I am rude, but I have to do it. I pull out my phone. Turn the light all the way down and search for the contract from Fabienne in my email. I sign it with my finger. Our address will be 5 rue de Médicis if the creek don’t rise. Josephine’s Bookshop in Paris. I’ve done it. I press send. It’s real now, Ms. Josephine. It’s real. I put away my phone and watch the play.

We can almost hear Ms. Josephine, loud and “laughing like a free woman,” throughout this production which takes place in a 1930s Harlem tenement. She seems to know the answer to the question that all Cleage’s characters are asking–how do free women move? Is there a way out of bondage without running? 

Yes. Expansion. 

This story begins with Cotton Club singer Angel played by confident and charismatic, Crystal A. Dickinson, having just been fired from her job at a nightclub. Angel is down on her luck and her finances, like most in the throws of the Great Depression. Through Angel we meet her cast of close friends, Delia (Maya Jackson), an activist social worker, who is working with the church to organize a family-planning clinic; Sam (Stephen Conrad Moore), a doctor, who delivers babies at Harlem Hospital, and Guy (Kevin R. Free), Angel’s costume designing friend and caretaker, who is leading the charge for the group to follow Ms. Josephine Baker’s footsteps straight to Paris. “Ce va?”

Guy is my favorite character, even though Kevin R. Free did some stumbling over lines, I think once he finds his flow, he’s going to spit fire into the role which will increase our emotional connection to him and Angel. Kevin R. Free is going to make audiences laugh more and cry more the longer he plays that role. He and Dickinson have great chemistry.

Guy is the narrative’s creative. He is determined to stitch together a plan that gets him and Angel out of living off the scraps of a divested Harlem. His plan is to take his friend to see the glorious City of Lights on Ms. Josephine Baker’s dime, so Guy sleeplessly designs showstopping costumes for Ms. Josephine Baker. He sews while Angel flits about trying to become a singer. Guy’s plan appears to be working until Angel meets Leland Cunningham (Brandon St. Clair), a grieving Southern suitor from Alabama who just may hold the key to Angel’s financial freedom. 

What did those who became the intellectuals and artists of the Harlem Renaissance gain from migrating away from their lives in the South and heading up North? Folks like my grandfather got freedom from lynch mobs and sharecropping. Yes. But he lost his land rights, right? 

Likewise, what did those intellectuals and artists, like Josephine Baker of the Harlem Renaissance gain from leaving the United States for Paris? But also what did they lose? What is the cost of freedom—especially for women?

Angel and Guy sit at the crux of this story about escaping, with differing approaches to how to free themselves from a spiraling social situation.

The playwright, Pearl Cleage, is many things that I hope to be someday. A novelist, a dramatist, an essayist, and a poet. She was raised in the Black Arts Movement and you can tell. She started telling stories when she was just two years old to her older sister. She’s alive to see her work done and redone time and time again. Blues for an Alabama Sky came into my life at the right moment, Ms. Cleage.

I’m officially off to Paris to build Josephine’s Bookshop this summer and I hope you’ll join me physically or follow along online. 

As you can see, Ms. Josephine Baker is speaking, and continues to remind us to “laugh like free woman.”

Happy Mother’s Day. 

That’s What She Said

“As a young girl, Jeannine Cook embraced storytelling the way some children cling to teddy bears or dolls. Her mother’s declining vision and her father’s terminal illness drove Cook and her two siblings to seek refuge in the world of make-believe.

“My sisters and I would make up stories all the time,” Cook says, recalling narratives they would concoct, find in books or act out for their neighbors in Hampton, Virginia. “It was just our way.”

Storytelling has remained a constant throughout Cook’s life. As an undergraduate at the University of the Arts, Cook launched Positive Minds, a club that gave children the skills and wherewithal to tell their own tales. The club became a launchpad for teaching stints at Belmont Charter School and YesPhilly, an accelerated high school for students who previously had dropped out or been incarcerated.

“What do we do with young people who have been told that they don’t belong,” Cook asks. “Inviting them to share their stories and learn other people’s stories is how you re-engage and remind somebody that they do have a place in society.”

As a consultant for the American Friends Service Committee, Cook traveled to Africa and the United Kingdom to help develop curricula that use narrative and poetry to explore racism, colonialism and imperialism through a global lens.

The consulting work continued in 2019, when Cook enrolled in Drexel’s MFA program. At the time, Cook envisioned opening a cozy little bookshop as a quiet space for her writing and consulting. Oops.

Harriett’s Bookshop, which opened in Fishtown in 2020, and Ida’s Bookshop, which burst on the scene in Collingswood, New Jersey, the next year, have garnered national attention, with help from celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Kelly Clarkson.

Harriett’s is named for abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Ida’s honors Ida B. Wells, the journalist and women’s suffragist who led anti-lynching efforts in the 1890s.

The shops and their online counterpart offer a trove of literature written by women authors, although Cook made an exception when Philadelphia native Will Smith launched the promotional tour for his eponymous memoir, “Will,” at Harriett’s in 2021. Both stores serve as venues where authors give readings, musicians perform, and a choir sings the songs that Tubman used to convey urgent messages to slaves escaping along the Underground Railroad.

Preparing for interviews with scholarly and literary luminaries like Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni and Imani Perry leaves Cook with little time to focus on her own writing, yet she’s three-fourths of the way through her memoir.

Joining Drexel’s inaugural MFA cohort, Cook relished the encouragement she received from program director Nomi Eve as well as a trip to France where she followed — literally — the footsteps of author James Baldwin. Cook was astonished to learn during that trip about French policies that help small bookstores flourish. What, she muses, if universities and agencies in the U.S. did likewise?

As the great-great-great granddaughter of a former slave who was forced to eat from a pig trough and identified learning to write her own name as a dying wish, Cook is determined to face the world, come what may.

“To still come out wanting to write and tell your story and believing that your story deserves to be told,” she says, “that’s just the people that I come from.”

The change I’d like to see most in the world…

A concentrated effort to repair and restore the lives of those affected by the institution of slavery, much like a modern-day version of the Truth & Reconciliation Trials in South Africa. We need to set aside time and resources to establish and plan for reparation. When social atrocities as tragic as this happen, we need to learn and practice repair. I’d also like to see more seemingly disparate groups working together to solve one issue at a time. Solve! Finally, I’d like to see the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on elections actually spent on solving real issues for real people, not campaigning. Perhaps those resources are what we can use to start the process of Truth and Reconciliation.”

Written by Sarah Greenblatt for Drexel University

this is a title

don’t close your eyes 

don’t let them fall

don’t let them fall or slump slump slump slump

carry them

catch them 

catch them 

carry them 

stretch them wide and jump jump jump jump 

Once upon a time, in a far off land, Heather met James, James met Heather. James says he sees a light around Heather. They kiss. They marry. They conceive. Heather and James lay an egg—they name their egg Jeannine. And read their egg books by her dear Uncle Jimmy. 

This is a fastforward. Jeannine hatches. She goes to university. “Yay! Jeannine.” Jeannine was supposed to come to France before her graduation, but the airport turned her away. A short finger pointing lady marked Jeannine’s passport with a lime green sticker, looked Jeannine up and down, and waved that finger no. 

No. No. No. 

“Don't pee yourself, Jeannine. Don’t pee yourself, Jeannine,” Jeannine hummed under her breath to the tune of the shaking finger. 

Jeannine’s bladder is a pussy. When it is scared, it runs.

At gate 53, Jeannine begs her bladder AND the finger pointing lady and the world to let her fly. “Please, please please let me fly,” she says, through her injured beak. “Please.” 

They deny her pleas. Jeannine stands by the window soaking and sulking and watching the others fly by. “Auvoir, Jeannine,” they wave. “Auvoir.” 

This is a flashback, in this flashback, snake ass fancy pants motherfuckers with deep wallets, and large apples and no faces invite Jeannine to apply for a so-called prestigious award that may help her fly. The fancy pants motherfuckers require Jeannine drop out of Drexel University to apply for their prestigious award. But it’s Jeannine’s last semester of her MFA program. The fancy pants award is almost $100,000 –enough to keep her book businesses and feed her baby chicks and pay for the damn MFA. Jeannine tells delightful Nomi, head of MFA, about the prestigious award. 

Delightful Nomi says Jeannine, don't be a small bird in a snake's garden.

Jeannine—still tempted by the snake with his fancy pants and deep wallet, drinks the nectar from the snake’s morherfucking apple. She compiles all her writings—her essays and articles, columns and stories, poems and prayers. Jeannine flutters through this garden of fancy pants motherfucking snakes and you know what? 

of course you know what! 

snakes eat small birds! 

So they opened their mouths and tried to swallow Jeannine whole. “Unfortunately after careful consideration you were not chosen for this fancy pants prestigious award we tempted you into applying for and made you drop out of school for and clipped your wings for.” So no degree. No award. Just a half eaten apple and half broken wings.

Are you sad for Jeannine? Don’t be sad for Jeannine. Remember Jeannine is the protagonist. 

In this story, someone finds wounded Jeannine. Wraps her wings in twine. Sprinkles them with fairy dust. 

In this flashback, Jeannine goes back to school. 

“Yay, Jeannine.” 

See Jeannine graduate. 

See Jeannine give graduation speech. 

But, Jeannine still cannot fly. 

All she does is flap her wings. 

This is a dialogue called when James Baldwin is your Uncle Jimmy. Every good story has dialogue, right? Can you say dialogue? Yes. Dialogue. Very good. Here is this story’s dialogue. 

Ring. Ring. Ring. 

“Hey, Uncle Jimmy.”

“Hey Neice. How ya been?“

“Been ok, Uncle Jimmy.”

“What ya been up to?”

“Well Uncle, I Did Kelly, Did Oprah, Did Google, Did Vogue, Did New York Times. PBS. NBC. BBC. just like you said.”

“Uhh huh and…?“

“Hmm. Well I still don’t know how to fly?”

“Flying is simple, Neice. Once you have wings. You use them.” 

“Uncle it is anything but easy,” Jeannine’s heart beat at 1260 beats per minute. 

“How bout this? You come to my house for the 

summer? I have a bed for you and will teach you everything you need to know to fly.”

“But Uncle Jimmy…”

“We’ll discuss it when you get here, Niece.” 

Jeannine arrives at the airport a second time and gets on her flight this time. Smiles at the finger pointing lady as she struts to seat 24 F this time. In just a few hours, Jeannine lands in a nest in Nice. 

But Uncle Jimmy is not there they say. Uncle Jimmy is DEAD they say. He’s been dead for sometime. All he’s left behind for Jeannine are his books. 

“How can this be? Uncle Jimmy, this cannot be?” 

Jeannine calls James. No answer. 

Jeannine calls Heather. No answer.

Jeannine calls Nomi. No answer. 

Jeannine calls those snake ass fancy pants motherfucking snakes. No answer. 

Jeannine calls Uncle Jimmy. No answer. 

This is a plot twist. 

Crying now as Jeannine sometimes does at the end of a story. She perches in a cafe window staring out at the Mediterranean Sea. A wind blows her book open to a note in the margin of the front page. “My dearest Jeannine, Go see Karen Karbo in Catalonia.” 

This is an alliteration.

“There you will find a group on an inexplicable concrete slab. Ask them to repeat after you and then you will fly to Paris.” -Signed Your Uncle Jimmy. 

this is call and response. so please repeat after me.

don’t close your eyes 

don’t let them fall

don’t let them fall or slump slump slump slump

carry them

catch them 

catch them 

carry them 

stretch them wide and jump jump jump jump  

And so she did. 

This is the end. 

 

Jeannine A. Cook

murder she wrote

Before the play begins, we hear an interview of Kennedy billowing throughout the newly named James Earl Jones Theater, hauntingly so. A voice of the present and the past. She chats casually about her work and her career.

We know it’s a play about a murder. The name Ohio State Murders gives it away. But knowing the playwright you know it won’t quite be a whodunit nor quite a mystery. We are in Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio and already she has us by the buckeyes.

But once the house lights dim, the show belongs to Audra McDonald in her dual role as present day and past day Suzanne Alexander—this is the first time the role has been acted out in this way by one person instead of two. Suzanne is here to give a speech at the university she attended 60+ years ago. The main question that the university wants answered is why her work contains so much violence. So the rest of the play weaves us between the past and the present—sometimes she is telling us a story, and sometimes she is acting it out, so we can better understand the writer who stands before us. One who is both masterful and heartbroken. Measured, calculated, and cold.

The set design is a defiant ode to dadaism with bookshelves strewn about rising and falling from the stage at broken angles, one bookshelf doubles as a podium for the plays’ speeches— and the constant movement, the emotional heartbeat which shows through a crack in the stages’ abyss and throughout the entire production that crack is filled with everchanging falling snow.

Audra McDonald gets her full set of flowers for taking on the role of two. But this just one of the many doubles. The two babies, the two other actors playing two people each, the two suitors, the two time periods.

I’m enamored by Kennedy. She is telling us the most horrific story, but the storytelling remains soft, ethereal, and dare I say enchanting. I’m thinking ok whether coincidentally or on purpose Kennedy is speaking to the establishment, whether that be academia or Broadway or any predominantly White institution and she is giving them the same middle finger that her professor, Robert Hampshire deserves. He deserves far more than that of course as much like the relationship she’s had with this industry he’s distasteful.

What happened at Ohio State is just one of many encounters I’m sure she’s had when trying to “test into the major” of Broadway or Harvard. The undeniable duality of wanting to destroy a system that you simultaneously want to be celebrated by.

For this many years, they’ve buried the truth of the murders, to the point where the institution itself doesn’t even realize who they’ve invited to speak. She is not one of their daughters—she’s an orphan, a step child.

The dreams of orphaned children often go unrealized. If you don’t fit the traditional mold you may become too far ahead of the establishment for them to see you in the horizon. Or they catch you just as the sun is setting.

So I know folks are hype the Ohio State Murders made it to Broadway, and we celebrate even as we mourn the murders of so many creative babies that Broadway has left head-cracked in a ravine.

I have so many reading comprehension quirks and grammar fuckedupnesses. I had to get a tutor my first year of college because professors were like, “we know you have something strong to say, but we can’t quite understand it.” Jack would mark my papers so red and read me for filth for all my dash marks. I wouldn’t know where to put commas and semicolons and shit so I’d just put a dash mark everywhere. All this while I just knew deep down I am a writer, I am a writer even if no one understand me. Jack was determined to get me together, which is why you can half way read what I’m writing right now, though I’m sure it’s filled with mistakes. And looking back from notebooks of stories, and endless games of make pretend, and having jazzy read to me by candlelight. From piddling through journalism in high school, and creative writing, and nearly failing AP English because I wanted to write about The Color Purple but I just struggled and struggled with how to take something so epic and synthesize it into small bites. And my teacher would be blown away to know that some day that same student grew up and met Alice Walker and interviewed her and got love from her. I’ve felt home here in this word world even when I didn’t fit in and in some ways still don’t. I know there’s something sacred for me in this space. And I know what stories do to me and for me and for others. I joined a writing group that was very much a support group. I took a class with Toby where we had to read a novel a week and then the next semester a play a week and and write a letter to her each these classes about what we read. I struggled. I’m not great on deadlines. But I lived for this class. It’s why I made it through the semester and why I woke up some mornings. I have pen pals. I write letters to. Some letters I am the Eagles 2022, some letters I am the Eagles 1936. At the same time my comprehension is wavy AF. I see things in texts that are sometimes not there. Or I miss things completely that are obvious. It’s such a contradiction in some ways that I have bookshops because I read very slow and I don’t memorize authors and I categorize in ways that only make sense to me and I have to read some passages over and over and over again for days. My mom, who is the opposite, was irritated with me once because she was like if I have to hear the first chapter of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings again, Jeannine. And mind you I’m listening to Maya Angelou read it while I read along from the book because you have to hear her voice read and then you can hear it forever in your spirit. Again—because I have issues. Sometimes because I just admire the sheer beauty, sometimes because I am getting 3 or 4 different interpretations—sometimes because I have NO idea what’s being said. Like right now I’m reading a book about wool. Yes wool. I am not great with clocks and time. I’ve always had my head in the clouds. I write like a cloud hopping goose flying from thought to thought. If I could, I’d stop the clocks sometimes and just let folks catch up on all the stories we’ve missed out on. I bet it would help. Nomi said I’ll hold your hand until the day you complete this memoir even if it never comes out to the public. Now that’s love. So yea with all that I’m published here and there. Bookshops here and there. Interviewing authors here and there. Walking Baldwin’s footsteps here and there. Invited to libraries and collections here and there. I even gave the graduation speech when I got my MFA one year later than my cohort. So yes, it’s an understatement, but I do know why the caged bird sings—I think.

the network

as we watch the networks of socials become both intertwined and undone, it is of vital importance that we too create vibrant viable networks outside of those kingdoms. our interconnected tribes —while not ever expected to be 100% aligned—find great respect for one another’s collective and therefore see it as a cousin—not needing to have the same parents to see the resemblance, not necessarily in color but in value systems. these collectives when linked up and interwoven become a vast conductor of energy and light—they mean that we travelers have a home wherever we go and that we move swiftly and more often as a result of our network. it becomes easy to grow businesses and relationships across state lines as we invite ourselves to be transient beings traveling along our own overground underground railroad.

Interview


C.O.B.S. MAGAZINE: Welcome to Women Innovators.  We are elated to have writer, educator, and strategist Jeannine A. Cook.  For the last 10 years, Jeannine has worked as a trusted writer for several startups, corporations, non-profits, influencers, and now herself. We will be talking to her about selling books, engaging communities, traveling the world, and her recognition.  Can you please give us a little background about your upbringing?

JEANNINE A COOK:  I consider myself to be mixed. My mother is from a small island in the Caribbean, Trinidad, and my father is from Brooklyn. When I was small some family referred to us as coconuts and others called us yankees. When I was 4 or 5 we moved to Hampton Virginia from the projects in New York. When I was still in elementary school my mother lost her vision completely and my dad was commuting back and forth working in New York while we lived in Virginia. I think partially the stress of this led to him developing a terminal illness. So both my parents were different abled growing up yet they were both avid readers and thinkers. I call my dad an armchair historian and my mom was a theological scholar—she continued her studies even after she went blind having us read to her and write for her so she could finish. She was also a former educator and librarian. I think their love for books transferred to me and my sisters.

C.O.B.S MAGAZINE: Can you share where your love of books comes from? Can you tell us about Ida’s Bookshop?  Where did the name derive from? What kinds of books are you selling? What makes you stand out from other bookshops?

JEANNINE A COOK:  I think I answered a bit above. But Ida’s is my second bookstore. We opened officially about 18 months ago. So if she was a baby she’d just be learning to walk and talk. She is named for Ida B. Wells who is a historical heroine who spent most of her life railing against unjust aspects of the legal system and state sanctioned lynching. She was a self taught writer and educator who used the power of her pen to speak to heads of state both here and abroad. Our bookshop’s mission celebrates women authors, artists, and activists but to the exclusion of any one else as we have a wide variety of books and the ability to order in anything. Our bookshop is an immersive experience, you walk in and you’re in the middle of a book—right now the design is like The Color Purple by Alice Walker but we change it quarterly to a new design. We also host musical acts and poets and a Whiskey Writers Club. Our bookshop is just as much a community organizing hub as it is a store.

  C.O.B.S MAGAZINE: Before Ida’s Bookshop you opened up another bookshop in Fishtown right before the pandemic.  It is said that Fishtown has been known as one of the most racists part of the city. Can you tell us the name of the bookshop? How did it feel as a Black woman to open up this bookshop in a town like Fishtown? What was the most challenging part? 

JEANNINE A COOK:  Yes, before Ida’s I opened a bookshop named Harrietts after my guiding light historic heroine Harriett Tubman. I opened up Harrietts because it was a place that I really needed for myself to heal. It also fulfilled a need I saw in the city where less than 2% of businesses are owned by folks who identify as Blk women. I believe spaces like ours, like the Colored Girls Museum, like Franny Lou’s Porch, Trunc, French Toast Bites, and Freedom Apothecary have the amazing ability to transform neighborhoods and restore social pain points because you are talking about institutions that don’t have to reform themselves from the ills of systematic racism, you are talking about spaces that care about community from deep within, you are talking about spaces that have made it their mission to be a beacon of light. But the most challenging part is all of the things you don’t know when you begin. All of the red tape and certificates and fees and licenses and ways in which the state feels comfortable attempting to take from us while it has yet to repair the harm inflicted on our ancestors. Then there’s folks who believe we don’t have the right to be in certain neighborhoods because those neighborhoods have historically looked one way or got away with certain levels of bullshit because they were homogenous. And having to teach folks who are accustomed to being bullies not to fuck with you.

C.O.B.S MAGAZINE: In November of 2021 you hosted a very special event for a well-known actor. Can you share who the actor was? How was the overall experience of hosting their event?  

JEANNINE A COOK:  We hosted the book launch for Will Smith and it was a very powerful experience to have someone of his notoriety say he wanted to support our work and launch with us. We redid our shop completely for his book covered it in all white and speaking to the theme in his book about having a blank canvas. We also hosted an all women hip hop concert out front with a a dj and a graffiti artists and dancers. It was live!

 C.O.B.S MAGAZINE: Funding an organization takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Self-financing is the way most entrepreneurs start up their companies. How difficult is the process to continue to generate funding to handle the overhead?

JEANNINE A COOK:  It is the job. The job is to do well while doing good and it’s the best job in the world to be able to do this under the guiding light of my ancestors and to be able to share stories with generations and to be a stand for literacy in this way. It’s not an easy job but its far easier than the work Harriett and Ida had to do for our people.

 C.O.B.S MAGAZINE: In your opinion how much do consumers count on physical bookstores when they can go online and order millions of books without having to go out? What purpose do you find physical bookstores serve within the communities? What does the future look like for independent bookstores like yours?

JEANNINE A COOK:  I think that stories have always and will always be central to the human experience. I do think especially after being quarantined people have a newfound respect for public spaces and for the opportunity to gather. I also recognize that in many ways bookshops act as secular sanctuaries where folks can fellowship and dialogue and disagree and question and express and those experiences are ultimately the perfect antithesis to loneliness which is one of the leading causes of many issues in our society. And what independent bookshops offer to a neighborhood is far different than what a chain offers. The experience is customized and community focused. I think folks know that bookshops serve many purposes direct and indirect and as the desire to ban books and ban ideas and ban empathy grows across the nation.

C.O.B.S. MAGAZINE: You are leading the change to create a federal holiday for Harriet Tubman. Can you share how that process is going? Why is it important for individuals to recognize her contributions?

JEANNINE A COOK:  The process is slow and a bit annoying. What it is teaching me is that our government and civic engagement has purposefully become overly complicated, cumbersome, and not at all people friendly. It was nice for the bill to get accepted into congress, but I recently learned that many many many bills get shuffled around congress for decades—take reparations for instance or even the fact that the first antilynching bill was just signed almost 200 years after Ida campaigned for that. I realize that there is so much effort and money put into the “get out the vote” effort but average citizens have no idea how our government works and how much decisions are made on money and not the will of the people. Why aren’t the millions of dollars spent on elections spent on educating the public on how policy gets made or how a law gets passed or even more importantly how to get rid of laws that are no longer necessary or important. It’s like a big game and very very wealthy people are running that game with their money and it’s kind of disgusting. Because if I was very wealthy it would be very easy to buy our way into a federal holiday. So it is teaching me what NOT to do when it comes time to create a new system of government because we are watching the current one slowly fizzle out. It is important for folks to recognize Harriett’s contributions not so much because Harriett needs it, but because we get to be reminded that the same spirit that Harriett possessed is possible in our current time. That same spirit of defying the odds, of honoring your fellow human, of endearing sisterhood, of putting your all into your community is possible and it is needed. This woman said give me liberty or give me death. You don’t hear folks having that kind of conviction about freedom anymore, but Harriett was a human, anything she did we all could do. She was a master strategist and in many ways that’s what we need more of.

C.O.B.S. MAGAZINE: You had the opportunity to facilitate art and social workshops with youth from 15 countries around the world.  What were some of the countries you visited and what was your end goal for presenting these workshops?

JEANNINE A COOK: I co-developed curriculum for the American Friends Service Committee on racism, colonialism, and imperialism. I was sent to Nairobi and the UK and on my own I developed curriculum in South Africa and France and Trinidad. I was a part of a team tasked with ensuring youth had tools to dismantle and subvert those -isms through storytelling.

C.O.B.S. MAGAZINE: In addition to holding a Master’s Degree from The University of the Arts, you are also a Leeway Art and Transformation grantee and winner of several awards.  Can you share some of the awards that you have been recognized for and which awards mean the most to you?

JEANNINE A COOK:  I am not really that into awards. It is nice, but I am more excited by actual shifts in culture and society and not so much the awards. I realize now that a lot of the awards are political and often folks are giving out awards simply because it benefits the organization giving the award and not so much the society. But I’ve gotten some cool ones and I am thankful. But I don’t need any recognition to do what I am doing, doing the work is more than enough reward for me.   

C.O.B.S MAGAZINE: What continues to be your daily driving force? Where do you see yourself in the next five years?  Can you please share your website information and can you please provide your social media platforms?  We wish you continuous success.

JEANNINE A COOK:  My driving force is curiosity. I am very interested in how things work and what to do when things don’t work. I am also driven by creativity. I love making and challenging myself and those around me to do what others say cannot be done. Finally I am driven by those who came before me. I see myself on the spectrum of freedom and that I am only doing my part on that spectrum and that spirit which travelled through Harriett and before Harriett in her mother and before her mother in Queen Nanny and before Queen Nanny in Neferttii and before her in Isis, I am a part of that tradition. In the next five years I see myself continuing to do what I’ve always done, telling stories, bringing people together, standing up for what I believe in, building spaces that are aesthetically stimulating, studying, writing, and creating something or another. Harriett’s and Ida’s Bookshop on all platforms.

Thank you! Ase.

I am Thula: My Questions for Imbolo Mbue about How Beautiful We Were


How beautiful we were

Imbolo Mbue

Whose shoulders do you stand on?

How do you identify?

  • “We should have known the end was near.” --share how this first sentence relates to the entire story?

  • the environmental degradation—what type of research did you do to build this world, how does research look —Kossowa—why a fictional place?

  • Thula—three generations of women—can you talk about how this book explores lineage and how we traverse time

    • In many ways this is our coming of age story. Talk about this character and how she came to exist in your mind, how much if any is Thula like you?

  • Children “What’s it like being a child in a world like this? What does your book say to children? Tell us about your childhood and how it influences the story?”

  • Sahul— the role that love and relationships play in the story. Why is that important.

  • There are many antagonists in the story. Can you talk about them from the government to the corporations to the media to even the people you think are coming to help.

  • But on top of everything we have a love story/many love stories. How does love shape the lives of these characters (Thula & Austin, Sahul & Malabo, Yaya & Grandpa)

  • patience vs fighting

  • reckoning vs reparations

  • movement vs revolution

  • Talk about the way that land and land rights show up in the book and in real life and why this is an important moment to talk about land rights, human rights, and international law

  • jakani and sakani—can you talk about being the supernatural elements of the story and why they were important to include

  • Its like you read this and you’re saying I want to do something I must do something but its like but where what how…what do you say to that reader?

  • Juba’s narrative and how people become Juba’s what was it like writing from Juba’s point of view?

  • being an immigrant—leaving and returning what is that like for you as a writer this concept of home

  • What are your thoughts on reparations and repair. Can the events of Kossowa ever truly be prepared? What would reparations look like?

  • Lets talk about movement building and Thula’s work to organize her people, why is organizing such a task

  • Flooding and Nigeria and Cameroon and climate change and when you see these things played out in the world

  • myth (blood of the leopard)

  • Americans, Pexton “if they were so disappointed in our ways, why don’t they leave”

  • Government/Corporations (“keeping countries like ours in their debt”) pexton/his excellency “more of their moral side”

  • money

  • yaya—ancestors, her husband, the history, slavery convo between af & af am

  • Kossowa

  • The Restoration Movement

  • “It was our land…

  • “and we did nothing”

  • jakani and sakani

  • movements “if it can happen here, it can happen there, humans are mortal and so are the systems they build”

  • liberation day

  • Flooding and Nigeria and Cameroon and climate change and when you see these things played out in the world

Climbing Ice

On the front cover of the 1973 book, Climbing Ice by Yvon Chouinard, a minuscule climber, with a single rope, grips onto a translucent, icicle-covered mountainside. Perhaps this is a formation from a cryovolcano on the southern tip of Pluto in the year 2053. Perhaps Earth has lost the war on emissions to extreme weather and Yvon, the only human with a semblance of life, traverses a frozen slush eruption with the last irregular mountaineering chock. 

Or maybe this book cover is a snapshot of 1960s Yvon on the border between Argentina and Chile near El Chaltén village and Viedma Lake with the howling Patagonian wind at his neck as he climbs miles into the sky on the back of Cerro Ritz Roy. 

While we do not know exactly where the minuscule climber is coming from, or where he is going, what we do know is that he is not afraid to go it alone. 

“How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top,” Yvon whispers to himself if you listen closely. “If you focus on the process of climbing, you’ll end up on the summit,” he sages himself further up. 

Last week Yvon Chouinard, who has gone from mountain climbing outdoorsman to founder and majority owner of a billion dollar clothing brand, Patagonia, announced that he is ascending yet another insurmountable summit. According to the New York Times, “Rather than selling [Patagonia] or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.”

Patagonia operates stores in 10+ countries around the globe as well as factories in 16 countries. Yvon is also the co-founder of 1% For The Planet, an alliance of businesses that contribute at least 1% of their annual revenues to environmental causes. 

Yvon, some may say, has reached the peak. His data driven commitment to manufacturing Patagonia’s products with sustainable materials and practices made customers loyal. Yes, this was the more difficult way to build a company, but it is clear that Yvon is comfortable with taking the more challenging climb. He is at the pinnacle of Mt. American Dream—build a strong company for 40 years—check, make millions of dollars doing what you love—check, do some good in the world—check, then relax. Nope. Yvon is not done climbing.  

You should know that although ice-climbing had been happening in cold weather climates since forever, it was Yvon in the late 60s who made it into a sport—innovating on equipment, defining new techniques, institutionalizing safety while teaching others to protect the earth in the process. Hundreds of climbers have followed him up seemingly impossible mountains and lived to tell the same story. “The impossible is possible.”

What if, yet again, Yvon is inspiring his fellow climbers to innovate, define, institutionalize, and protect but with business? How thrilling would it be to watch the wealthy, (and not so wealthy), lenders, policy makers, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers turn sustainability into a sport worth gawking at. Imagine cheering on your favorite brands as they edge us all closer to a stabilized global temperature or climbing flag polls because your favorite manufacturer has hit net zero. Yes, full on parades for corporations that break free from plastics. 

It is us, the dollar wielding cheerleaders, with the most control over who becomes a billion dollar company. Patagonia did not do this on its own of course. We decided we would support their climb because we trust Yvon’s ability. 

Similarly it is us who decides who will be the next one up Mt. Kenya—and must agree that it won’t just be those who check the cliche box of having a reduce, reuse, recycle message on their websites. Cheerleaders are excited for true champions— those who are sharing the data, the stats, the evidence of their commitment to serving mother earth. It is us who must demand Patagonia-like action from companies and policymakers and when we demand that with our dollars, it’s what we will get.

Some may read this and say well ice-climbing is a white man’s sport, Jeannine. You don’t see any brothers or sisters risking their lives up there on the side of Mt. Kirkjufell bolted to a massive boulder. Those climate change, glacier huggers all look the same, right? No. Wrong. Very wrong. 

There are a number of smaller manufacturers, who don’t look like Yvon, but climb like he does. Manufacturers like Darrell Jobe of Vericool, who may not be giving away all of his Black Friday sales, but he is making sustainable, environmentally friendly packaging to replace Styrofoam. His workers are second chance citizens like himself returning home from prison. Let’s cheer Darrell and his 50 employees up Mt. American Dream. 

There’s also folks like Karen Young from Oui the People, who estimates that 2 billion plastic razors end up in landfills every year, and the personal care industry in general is one of the largest producers of waste, so she’s changing that without a billion dollars in revenue. Let’s cheer Karen and her 64 employees up Mt. American Dream. 

The Karens and Darrells of the world are working to protect the same planet as Yvon and they are doing so with far less resources—so a little cheering goes a long way.

Or maybe we do nothing at all. We let the minuscule man on the cover of Climbing Ice, continue at it alone with a single rope, gripping onto a translucent rime of hard snow. We play our part in helping Earth lose the war on emissions and we let Yvon be the only human with a semblance of life, traversing a frozen slush eruption when the last remaining mountaineering chock breaks in two. 

Maybe the impossible is just impossible. 

But maybe not. 

Jet Blue

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

A long way from home

January 2017. South Africa Airlines. Flight 6672 to Johannesburg. Arrive at JFK. 18 hours. No layover. Second class. No wifi. Second class. No blanket. Second class eat second. Land in the Motherland. The cradle of civilization. “Upon your arrival in Mother Africa, she will greet you, ‘Welcome Home’ my people said. Except if you are her second child. I discover.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

A long way from home

April 2017. United Airlines Flight 4287 to California. 5 hours. Named for Queen Califia a mother on mission to raise armies of warrior women.  Arrive at airport two hours early. Drink. Board. Pee. Knock knock. “Yes, I am peeing.” “Come out of there right now or we will remove you from this flight.” “But I am peeing.” “That’s it we are calling TSA.” Removed in cuffs. Banned from United.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

A long way from home, a long way from home.

June 2017. Spirit Airlines Flight 9140 to Norfolk. 2 hours. 4 hour delay from Philly. Head straight from airport to grandmother’s sister’s funeral. Sit in the back. No further back then that. “She was a mother to us all,” is all you catch before the processional of tears, flowers, wails, and goodbyes. Then a rendition of her favorite song as they escort her coffin to the hurst.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

A long way from home

August 2017. Caribbean Airlines Flight 2221 to Trinidad and Tobago where your mother was born. Eat palourie. Eat doubles. Eat coconut. Eat mango. Eat plantain. Eat roti. Eat wind. Eat sun. Eat sea. Now back to the airport.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

A long way from home

December 2017. American Airlines Flight 3333 to…to no where. This flight has been cancelled. Please see the agent at the kiosk for further instructions on how to get you home.