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| Willa Robinson | |
Willa Robinson, the owner of Willa's Books & Vinyl in Kansas City, Mo., has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help find a new location for her bookstore, the Kansas City Star reported. So far the campaign has raised $7,665 toward a $10,000 goal.
She told the Star that her building, in which the bookstore has resided for the last six years, has been sold to a real estate developer. She did not receive any warning or notice, she added, and only learned of the sale when her husband read an article about it in the paper. She is also unsure when exactly she'll have to move, but expects she still has a few months.
Robinson called the sale of the building an "uprooting" of its small-business tenants. Some, she noted, are already starting to move while others are waiting a bit longer. "I wasn't intending to move again, but it might be a good thing."
Robinson opened her bookstore in 2007. The inventory focuses on Black literature and history, with Robinson estimating that 95% of her titles are about Black people and the African diaspora. The bookstore has a speciality in rare African American books and it also serves as an incubator for local, Black-owned businesses. She added: "It's important to have a Black bookstore in this community."