Jasmine Baker from Black Garnet Books in St. Paul, Minn., has won the Carla Gray Memorial Scholarship for Emerging Bookseller-Activists, awarded by the Friends of Carla Gray Committee and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation.
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| Jasmine Baker | |
Baker will receive a year-long scholarship for professional development, which includes travel and hotel to attend Winter Institute 2027, travel and hotel to attend their 2027 regional fall trade show, and a $2,000 stipend to fund a community outreach project. Baker plans to use the stipend to host the store's second annual Midwest Black Book Fair and expand the project to other states across the Midwest.
"It is truly an honor to be this year's recipient of the Carla Gray Memorial Scholarship for Emerging Bookseller-Activists," said Baker. "Thanks to Binc, we can continue hosting our next Midwest Black Book Fair, a fair to uplift the modern-day intersectional narratives of Blackness, Black history, and Black futurity here in Minnesota and make it bigger and better than before. I'm proud to be a part of this work where we can continue to be the writers of our own stories and dreams."
"Bookstores are the core of a thriving community," Binc CEO Pam French added, "and supporting booksellers' engagement in their community is critical to the future of bookselling and the larger book industry. Thank you to the Friends of Carla Gray for their continued commitment, and congratulations to Jasmine. We look forward to learning more about your project and watching its impact thanks to this annual scholarship that honors Carla's legacy."