LITERARY ORGANIZATIONS ISSUE
Drum & Spear Bookstore
by Brian Gilmore
According to Judy Richardson,
a former member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee or
SNCC, when Drum & Spear Bookstore opened in 1968 right in the heart
of Washington DC, the riots from the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
had just ended.
“There was still tear gas in the air,” says Richardson from
Massachusetts where she currently works on films, “you felt it
in your nose.”
Officially, Drum & Spear Bookstore opened in Washington DC on June
1, 1968. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been dead less than
two months. Robert Kennedy would be killed a week after the store opened.
It was turbulent time in America. The arrival of Drum & Spear fit
neatly into that transformative period.
The address, according to newspaper sources, was riot central: 2701
14th Street NW, just blocks from where the city exploded only minutes
after the post-King assassination melee began. Charlie Cobb,
25 years old, and a former field secretary for SNCC founded the store
along with Judy Richardson, Courtland Cox,
and Curtis Hayes (later Curtis Muhammed).
The space where Drum & Spear came to life was described as a “burnt
out shop.”
The Washington Post also referred to the soon to be popular
cultural meeting ground as a “ghetto bookstore” that had
reached out successfully to an “untapped literary mart.”
Cobb’s father, Charlie Cobb, Sr., the Executive Director of the
United Church of Christ, provided the initial seed money of $10,000
to get the store established.
From the beginning, Drum & Spear was, in fact, a meeting place for
Black artists and progressive political movers and shakers of the time.
Many were desperate and determined to continue the movement against
racial discrimination in America. The presence of the SNCC members was
no accident; SNCC had come to Washington DC to bring change to the city.
Writers and artists came as well to network. Of note, Shirley
Dubois, widow of the late W.E.B. Dubois, came
to the store for a celebrated signing of her husband books in January
1971.
Drum & Spear was a place where Black literature flourished. Charlie
Cobb was a poet at the time, so naturally it served an important
purpose for the city’s always-burgeoning Black poetry scene.
“Black poetry was central to Drum and Spear,” Judy
Richardson says as she also drops the names of a few poets
of note who read their work at the store: “Gaston Neal,
Charlie Cobb...Sonia Sanchez.”
Tony Gittens, former long time Director of the DC Commission
on the Arts and Humanities, and co-founder of the store, remembers the
poetry well and cites one person in particular who harnessed the poetry
energy in the store and presented it to the public.
“The main poetry person was Gaston Neal,”
Gittens says. Gittens eventually became manager of the store when it
became the largest Black bookstore in the country.
Gaston Neal was clearly an example again the political
presence of the store. He was, however, not a member of SNCC. Neal founded
the New School of Afro-American Thought at the same time. Richardson
says Neal’s presence was simply part of what we were doing at
Drum & Spear.
Neal wrote poetry, organized readings at the store, and kept Black poetry
alive and well in the city at a time of immense strife and confusion.
Some of that cultural and political expression was always found at Drum
& Spear.
In 1969, the bookstore assisted in organizing a conference called “Towards
a Black University.” The conference eventually led to the formation
of many Black Studies programs across the country. The bookstore also
founded a publishing arm, Drum & Spear Press, which sought to publish
African-centered theme books for children.
Conceptually, according to those that remember, the store was simple:
it provided books that one would not otherwise find in other stores,
specifically books written by black authors. Alex Haley’s
The Autobiography of Malcolm X was frequently a best seller
in the store.
Local writer, Marita Golden, remembers the store well,
calling it “a real important cultural beacon during the 60's and
70's." It was a “crucial as a part of the Black arts and
Black consciousness movement,” she adds by e-mail.
One of the other interesting developments brought forth by Drum &
Spear Bookstore is it became the catalyst for other Black bookstores
in the area many years later, namely Karibu
Books.
Simba Sana, co-founder of Karibu with Yao
Glover, in 1992, recalled Drum & Spear’s history
in an unpublished thesis he completed on African-centered bookstores
in 1998. According to Sana, Drum & Spear sold many books to local
schools and libraries and even received some financial assistance from
the Johnson administration during the early years. Sana adds: "It
became an important information center and gathering place for a wide
range of people from students to drug dealers to political activists.
Many author readings and lectures were held in the store, featuring
such notables as Haki Madbubuti, Shirley Graham
DuBois, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lerone
Bennett."
By the early 70’s, the once-popular meeting place for Black poets
and activists had closed its doors. It was a brief though important
run.
According to Sana, and others, money was always an issue but the presence
of the many players from SNCC didn’t help matters either. It seems,
at least according to Sana’s research, that “repeated harassment
by government forces” contributed to the demise of the establishment.
Considering the politics of Drum & Spear and what it wanted to do,
it is not surprising.
Sources
“Book Dedication, Shirley DuBois,” Jet Magazine,
January 21, 1971, p.57
“Ghetto Bookshop Finds Untapped Market,” Adrienne Manns,
The Washington Post, August 27, 1968, B-1
African-centered Bookstores as Weapons of Culture: Applying the
Thought of Amilcar Cabral to the Development of Black Cultural Institutions
in the U.S., Simba Sana (unpublished manuscript – Howard
University) May 1998
Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC's Dream, Wesley C. Hogan, (UNC
Press 2007) p. 231
CLR James: A Critical Introduction, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, (University
Press of Mississippi 1997) p. 80
Telephone Interviews with Tony Gittens
and Judy Richardson (2007), email interview with Marita Golden (2010).
Brian Gilmore
is the author of two books of poems, elvis presley is alive and
well and living in harlem, (Third World Press 1993) and Jungle
Nights and Soda Fountain Rags: Poem for Duke Ellington (Karibu
Books 2001). He received an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland
State Arts Council in 2001 and 2003; was a Cave Canem Fellow in 1997;
and a Pushcart prize nominee in 2007. A public interest lawyer, he teaches
in the Clinical Law Center at the Howard University,
is a columnist for The Progressive Media Project, and a contributing
writer for Ebony-Jet online. He lives in Takoma Park, MD with
his family.
Published
in Volume 11, Number 2, Spring 2010.
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