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Arts & Entertainment

Black-owned bookstore in Fort Worth calls recent months of activism ‘The Great Awakening’

Owned by two sisters, the Dock Bookshop has served as a community space for the past 12 years.

FORT WORTH — By the end of May, the Dock Bookshop had run out of certain titles. After the killing of George Floyd, sisters Donya and Donna Craddock noticed that people of all races were pouring into their family-owned store in search of books on racism and privilege.

The sisters put up signs to alert customers about their low inventory. The signs, displayed next to books like Hood Feminism and We Were Eight Years in Power, referred to recent weeks of increased activism for social justice and against police brutality as “The Great Awakening.”

The Dock Bookshop is one of the largest Black-owned bookstores in Texas and the Southwest. Located in a predominantly Black ZIP code in east Fort Worth, the bookstore is large, with only half of the space reserved for books; the other half serves as a space for community events.

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It also serves as a site of knowledge, educating people about African and African American history and culture through in-person events, programs on a radio station and of course, books. “Especially for a Black bookstore, that is one of our missions — serving the community,” Donna said.

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But now, at a time when people are curious to learn how recent events will play into a larger narrative of history, the Dock, with its signs, has given a name to this historic moment. Perhaps unwittingly, too.

The signs

One of the signs put up by the Craddock sister in The Dock Bookshop. The signs call recent...
One of the signs put up by the Craddock sister in The Dock Bookshop. The signs call recent months of activism the "Great Awakening."(Courtesy of Zayna Syed)

The signs were put up without much thought, the sisters said. They had seen an influx of customers from all backgrounds like never before. Churches, schools and corporations had called about buying books.

A bookstore that was once a “labor of love,” where the Craddocks had to bail out the store with income from their two other careers, was now reaching the point where it could sustain itself.

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It seemed like a “Great Awakening,” they thought. Thus, the signs. “That was spur of the moment for us,” Donna said. “When I put up the [signs], it was because it was such an influx of people coming through of all cultures and backgrounds. We had that a little bit in the past, but it was a greater influx of it.”

Years from now, the signs could be used to supplement historical records, said Max Krochmal, an associate professor who teaches U.S. history at Texas Christian University. “There are historians who really do use material culture like that in various serious ways,” he said. “And maybe something like that could end up in an archive, or photographs of it could end up in archives, and actually turn out to be a really good descriptor.”

Krochmal said these kinds of materials are important to gaining a more inclusive sense of history, since archives are often racially biased. “Generally, I think there’s been a shift in the discipline of history over the last 50 plus years, to move away from ‘great man’ history and towards accounts of more ordinary people,” he said.

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A place to teach history

The Dock opened in 2008, during the Great Recession. Critics estimated it would stay open for only five years, if that, Donna said.

The sisters opened the store after Black Images Book Bazaar and the Black Bookworm, two other prominent Black bookstores in North Texas, had closed. They loved books, and they missed the community those bookstores had provided.

Now, 12 years later, the sisters have called keeping the bookstore open a family and community effort. They both have careers outside of the bookstore — Donna works as a volunteer director at St. John’s Church in Fort Worth, and Donya works in mortgage banking. They rely on other family members to run the bookstore during the day.

Rickie Clark, an author and mentor at Fort Worth ISD, poses in this undated handout photo....
Rickie Clark, an author and mentor at Fort Worth ISD, poses in this undated handout photo. Clark is a regular customer at The Dock Bookshop and runs a mentorship program there called Rites to Passage. (Edmond Breaux Jr.)

One of their loyal customers is Rickie Clark, an author and mentor at Fort Worth ISD. “When I see folks at a predominantly African-American bookstore, nine out of 10 [are] readers, and I love that part,” he said.

The Dock is one of few places for Black people to gather, he said. “We always talk about a food desert, but I think there’s a social-gathering desert as well,” he said. “So we go to the Dock Bookshop to hopefully meet with like-minded people and get in an environment that’s a reflection of [our] own culture.”

Clark recently started a mentorship program, which he runs at the Dock following social distancing guidelines. The program, Rites to Passage, teaches Black youth about African and African-American history.

“We’re teaching kids that slavery is not African history,” Clark said. “Slavery is an interruption of African history. So when we work with the kids, we begin their history in a state of freedom.”

Donna said The Dock was built for programs like these. “These kids, where would they go and learn about Black history?” she said.

The making of history

While the signs might have been a spur of the moment decision, Ervin James, an associate professor who teaches social science and humanities at Paul Quinn College, said there have been other notable examples of people referring to recent weeks as a “Great Awakening,” or a growing empathy and solidarity with the Black community and its grievances.

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CNN commentator Van Jones wrote a column calling activism after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police an unprecedented “Great Awakening.” And in a Zoom call with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, President Barack Obama said he is optimistic about the future because of a “Great Awakening” in the country.

Dr. Ervin James, an associate professor at Paul Quinn College, teaches social science and...
Dr. Ervin James, an associate professor at Paul Quinn College, teaches social science and humanities and said this movement should be remembered as the Young People's Campaign for Social Justice and Equality in America.(Courtesy of Dr. Ervin James)

But while James said he’s heard one or two people use “the Great Awakening,” it’s not a common phrase for today’s activism. In fact, there have already been two Great Awakenings in history. Both refer to Protestant religious revivals, the first in the 1700s and the second in the 1800s.

Because of the religious connotation of the phrase, James and Krochmal said historians might not classify activism after George Floyd’s murder as a “Great Awakening.” Instead, James thinks the current movement should be remembered as “The Young People’s Campaign for Social Justice and Equality in America.”

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Young people “don’t want the status quo for themselves, they’re not interested in maintaining the status quo as far as inequality is concerned,” he said. They have shown up “in a way that transcends race, ethnicity, gender, class. … Rarely have we seen that. Not since the ’60s.”

James did say the term could be considered a secular “Great Awakening,” though, given how many people have a renewed sense of commitment to justice. “It’s an ongoing struggle,” he said. “If there ever was an awakening, it’s the realization that there is so much more work to be done — that we aren’t there yet.”

Krochmal said bookstores like the Dock are invaluable resources for people to find books that include “truer” histories of the American past, books he said might be hard to find on Amazon without knowing what you’re looking for.

“They are actually making it easy for people to find curated collections of more inclusive, alternative and indeed, more accurate histories of the American past and of the African diaspora,” he said.

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The Craddock sisters are unsure if this “Great Awakening” will continue but are ultimately hopeful for change. People were not only having discussions about race and privilege, they were reading books about the Black experience. That’s a powerful concept, Donya said.

“The words have a way of jumping off the page and into your consciousness, and then into your actions,” said Donya. “I think that’s where we’re seeing a whole ‘Great Awakening.’”