Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008
Karibu chain of bookstores to close
County-based business announces plans to shut down over next two weeks
by Daniel Valentine | Staff Writer
Karibu Books owners Yao Hoke Glover III (left) and Simba Sana stand in their Bowie store in 2004. The chain of stores, four of which are in Prince George’s, are closing over the next two weeks, according to the company’s Web site. ‘
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Karibu Books, an independent bookstore chain based in Prince George’s County that promoted black writers and literature for 14 years, is closing all five of its remaining stores.
‘‘We respectfully thank you for your loyalty, laughter and love,” co-founder Simba Sana wrote in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday night announcing the shutdown. Reasons for the closing, which was also posted on the company’s Web site, are unclear.
The chain plans to close its stores in Forestville and Baltimore on Sunday, Sana wrote.
Other locations at the Bowie Town Center, the Mall at Prince George’s in Hyattsville and Iverson Mall in Hillcrest Heights will shut down Feb. 10.
Store employees declined to comment, and calls to Karibu’s corporate offices were not returned as of Wednesday afternoon.
The closing marks the end of the popular business that encouraged black authors and hosted roundtable discussions, poetry readings and visits from noted authors across the country like Maya Angelou, famed mystery writer Walter Mosley and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.
‘‘It was a very popular niche in the market,” said Gazette columnist and author Van Caldwell, who met regularly at the Bowie store with other members of the county’s Black Writers’ Guild.
Karibu was the largest Afro-centric bookstore company in the United States, its owners said. Their slogan touted the store as ‘‘books by and about African people, 365 days a year.”
‘‘I’m very saddened to hear the news,” said Shon Majette, a Capitol Heights author and publisher who said the store helped many local authors get recognition.
Taking its name from the Swahili word for ‘‘welcome,” Karibu was launched in 1993 by Sana and partner Yao Hoke Glover III, who sold books from a pushcart.
‘‘You would see them at all the events,” Caldwell said.
The two men ran the store with the goal of empowerment. Glover was a former government worker who earned a degree in poetry from the University of Maryland, College Park. Sano, Karibu’s chief executive officer, was a former auditor who wrote his master’s thesis at Howard University on ‘‘Black Bookstores as Cultural Institutions.”
In addition to their pushcart, the men launched study groups and book clubs. They reached out to local authors and struck deals to supply specialty books to the University of Maryland, Howard and Bowie State universities.
Over the years, the enterprise grew to include four sites in the county, along with two satellite stores in Arlington County, Va., and Baltimore. The Virginia location has already closed.
Supporters suspect that the chain simply couldn’t keep up with competition from large-scale corporate stores like Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Borders Book Stores.
‘‘It was a struggle,” Caldwell said.
In a 2004 interview, Sana acknowledged that the competition was tough, but said the company was dedicated to being a cultural force in the county.
‘‘There is an unspoken contract that we are going to be here, we are not going to close,” he said.
Fans remember the store as a one-stop spot for African-American books and music.
‘‘If I was looking for something, I knew I could just stop in and I’d probably find it,” Caldwell recalled. ‘‘I didn’t have to order it.”
Karibu’s locations at high-end malls also helped send a message, Majette said.
‘‘To go to the mall and have an African-American store there, that meant something,” she said.
Karibu officials plan to sell their stock at half-price through the final days at their remaining stores, according to the company’s Web site.
E-mail Daniel Valentine at dvalentine@gazette.net.
