Not your typical bookstore
EyeSeeMe takes fresh look at black history, life.
As African American parents, Pamela and Jeffrey Blair of St. Louis, Missouri, always taught their four children about their history and helped them to develop a positive self-image. They told stories about their lives, their grandparent’s lives and their families’ migration from the Caribbean.
When the Blairs started homeschooling the children in grade school, they noticed the lack of books featuring African American contributions to society. Instead, the curriculum focused only on slavery and famous figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. – limited lessons that offered a narrow view of the history, heroes, and accomplishments of African Americans.
Rather than acquiesce, they snapped into action.
“We had to create material based on our own research,” Pamela Blair says. “We utilized our family historian and the children’s grandfather, Shadrock Porter. Also African American history professors, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Smithsonian Institution and various black-owned bookstores.”
“We did a lot of research to help fill this void,” says Jeffrey Blair. The couple’s children are now young adults, 18 to 25 years old.
“Although it was difficult and timeconsuming, we needed to create an environment for our children that bridged the gap between education, identity, history and fun.”
It worked. They created child-friendly lessons and games for the kids based on such books as “The Mis-Education of The Negro” by Carter G. Woodson and “From Babylon to Timbuktu: A History of the Ancient Black Races Including the Black Hebrews” by Rudolph R. Windsor. The children showed pride and began to act with more purpose.
“They understood that they were standing on the shoulders of giants and have a responsibility to do their best,” says Jeffrey, 53. Today, three of their children are in undergrad and one is in medical school.
The Blairs’ due diligence also sparked a business idea. In 2015, they opened a bookstore in St. Louis called EyeSeeMe. “We have to feed our children positive images and tell the stories of our past because the nation would not be what it is today without those ancestors,” says Pamela, 50.
In February, the bookstore moved into a 3,000-plus-square-foot space with an area for patrons to sit and peruse titles, a cafe serving sweets and treats, and rooms for after-school programs or events.
With thousands of children’s books, bestsellers include “I Am Enough“by Grace Byers, “Changing Seasons“by Mon Trice, and “Spy on History: Mary Bowser and the Civil War Spy Ring“by Enigma Alberti.
Aside from fiction and nonfiction books, the bookstore sells multicultural books, posters, educational games, bookmarks, and journals. “Thanks to Facebook and Instagram, teachers read colleagues’ posts, parents attended events, and the business grew from there,” says Pamela Blair about the company’s success.
During the school year, EyeSeeMe is host to book fairs that showcase titles for educators. The Blairs consult with them on how they can incorporate the information into lesson plans. The bookstore even has a theme song on YouTube, created by their son Ezra when he was 12.
Because August marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to Point Comfort in what would become Virginia,such titles as “Hard Labor: The First African Americans, 1619” and The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay: Life in Medieval Africa by Patricia C. McKissack and Frederick McKissack Jr. often are recommended.
During February, EyeSeeMe partnered with the #rememberthe400 movement to acknowledge the arrival with a series of workshops, presentations, and lectures throughout the St. Louis region. The bookstore also is creating a youth chapter and programs throughout 2019 to highlight historical events in African American history over the past 400 years. The culminating event will include a bus trip to Hampton, Virginia, in August to participate in the 2019 African Arrival Commemoration.
“When people think about black history, it’s often one-dimensional – slavery or civil rights,” says Jeffrey Blair. “African American history does not begin at slavery; it goes all the way back to the beginning.”
He says there’s a multitude of untold stories about heroes, partnerships, and collaborations that parents, educators, and community organizers can use #rememberthe400 to elevate those stories.
The Blairs’ primary goal: “To make sure that all children have a healthy perspective about the contributions of African Americans.”
“We needed to create an environment for our children that bridged the gap between education, identity, history and fun.” Jeffrey Blair