Free Black Space is a place where all definitions of blackness exist.

Physically, it is the Hair Dresser, the Barbershop, the Club, the Corner, the Backyard where the cookout is held. The Church, the One Room School House in the Old Deep South, The Black Bookstore, The Black Think Tank Board Room. It is the place where black folks can open their mouth and what they say will be respected, heard (not neccessarily agreed with but heard.)

Mentally, it is the place where freedom has existed ever since African Americans arrived in this country. Spiritually, it is the place where pain and suffering are transcended. Mentally, it is the place where Black Thought has the ability to solve all problems and engage them with vigor, like science, like mathematics. A place where form and content fuse.

And Free Black Space obviously contains Black Love. The force and power that is a unity between all of our faculties. A collective consciousness that seeks the highest forms of unity with the forces of nature and others in our community.

And while Free Black space is metaphysical, it is also physical. Back to the location-anyplace where there is the feeling of freedom. The original impetus-the thing our ancestors who were enslaved sought above all else. The Black Body, the vessel that holds the soul and the mind. The brother and sister, the mother and father, the child and the adult walking down the street being themselves.

Free Black Space is as much about the physical as the mental. What we can and cannot say. Where we can go and cannot go. Free Black Space is about the forum-the ground where we can speak freely, so that we may share, learn, and seek a greater sense of unity with members of our community.

Free Black Space comes out of an experience of selling books to African Americans. Too often in our daily lives, we are convinced that what we think does not matter. Though books are about entertainment they are also about thought. Within the world of books one is able to travel to a variety of places. The dialogue about books is a dialogue about thought. Many of the people who read and many of the people who enjoy books are convinced that thought matters. Free Black Space promotes Free Black Thought and Free Black Ideas. Free Black Space promotes Black People Reading. Free Black Space promotes Black People reading in and outside of the Black Literary Tradition. Free Black Space promotes Black People studying all forms of culture and all forms of knowledge.

Karibu Books was a generalized Black Bookstore. There were few if any restrictions on what Literature would be carried. Witness the birth of the general black bookstore. Unlike prior generations of Black Bookstores there was no one perspective reflected in the inventory. The location offered books in a wide variety of subjects by people who often did not share ideologies, political beliefs, religions or ways of viewing the world. While the traditional Black Bookstore was a question of liberation Karibu Books was not allowed this luxury. The customers, the historical time, the market forces all demanded a different and more comprehensive approach. Some may asks what is more than liberation. Perhaps it is liberation which needs to be redefined. Liberation not just in the physical sense, but also in the mental, spiritual, and metaphysical sense. This quest for freedom is a natural progression of our development in this country-our becoming. And even more clearly, it is the fundamental ground those in our community who seek knowledge always return to. We know the book is powerful. We know that knowledge is powerful. We experience a process of transformation once we come to these revelations. Revelations that in some shape or form center around a becoming that is connected to seeking knowledge in literature-respecting and cultivating the culture of the book.

Karibu Books and all Black Bookstores are important because they add dimension to the physical locations of Free Black Space. They are an important part of our culture. Free Black Space is a journey as much as it is a place. It is a place as much as it is a mindset.

Free Black Space