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.