Just off of GP you gotta check the website for some really cool books and apparel that I noticed:
grassrootzbookstore.com
Ali Nervis didn’t walk into a building and open a bookstore. He walked into a hallway with a borrowed shelf and a box of books from his own house — and decided that Phoenix deserved better.
It was 2019. Nervis was a community organizer who kept seeing the same disconnect: entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas on one side, and activists sacrificing everything for justice on the other — and almost no space where those two worlds could sit down together, build relationships, and fuel each other. So he created one. On July 4th, 2019, in the Afri-Soul Marketplace in Phoenix’s historic Eastlake Park neighborhood, Grassrootz Books & Juice Bar was born.
Today, Grassrootz is Arizona’s only Black-owned, worker-owned bookstore — and it is so much more than a bookstore. Walk in and you’ll find thousands of titles: African American history and literature, social justice, Black fiction, hip-hop culture, children’s books, comic books, and work by local Phoenix authors. You’ll find a juice bar where every drink on the menu is named after a Black revolutionary leader — order the Garveyite, named for Pan-African visionary Marcus Garvey, and you’ll understand immediately why this place is different. You’ll find a coworking space where the next generation of Black entrepreneurs is building something. An art gallery featuring the work of local Black artists. A community library where you can borrow a book for 30 days for just $5. And on any given Sunday, you’ll find a chess tournament in full swing.
The world has noticed. Grassrootz has been featured on Oprah Daily, named Best Bookstore That’s More Than a Bookstore by Phoenix New Times, and has hosted its annual Black History Festival for six consecutive years — drawing Black authors, speakers, artists, and community changemakers from across Arizona and beyond. Phoenix Vice Mayor Carlos Garcia has walked through those doors. So has Dr. Umar Johnson. So have hundreds of children hearing their first story read aloud by an author who looks like them.
“The community has really supported us, has really invested in us, believed in us,” Nervis says. “We’re just proud stewards of a community space. This is what our store is all about.”
Eastlake Park is one of the few historically Black neighborhoods in Phoenix. Before the Civil Rights era, Black families here were redlined south of Van Buren Street, shut out of schools and neighborhoods north of that invisible line. This is where the community gathered then. This is where it gathers now. Grassrootz didn’t choose this neighborhood by accident. It chose it because the need — and the power — have always been here.
“We exist to create a more enlightened society,” Nervis says. “Through education, enlightenment, conversation, and community building, we hope to bring about a change — not just in how we relate to each other, but how we connect with ourselves.”
If you’ve been looking for a third space that actually feels like home — where the books feed your mind, the juice feeds your body, the art feeds your spirit, and the people feed your soul — you just found it.
I hope they get to know Kitsune Brewing, the only Black-owned Brewery in Phoenix.
grassrootzbookstore.com · @grassrootzbookstore
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