Black-owned bookstore creates community in Phoenix

Arizona Republic

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USA TODAY NETWORK

In a white building on the corner of Washington and Twelfth Streets, kids laugh and ride their scooters in the parking lot while soulful music spills out and invites visitors to step inside. Curious customers can browse bookshelves filled with topics ranging from historic events that led to social justice movements to fictional adventurers who mirror real-world activists fighting oppression.

Grassrootz Bookstore & Juice Bar in Phoenix is the only independent Black-owned bookstore in the city and exists as a community space where people can come to learn, work and feel a sense of belonging. A few years ago, the business started with two secondhand bookshelves.

“When we first opened, we didn’t have anything,” Ali Nervis, the owner of Grassrootz known as “Brother Ali”, told The Arizona Republic. Today, the space fosters healing, education and conversation.

“We wanted to create a space that was safe for the entire community that was devoted to education.”

Owner of Grassrootz

Born to enterprise

Growing up, Nervis spent hours in his mother’s art gallery in El Paso, Texas, where she worked as an artist and the owner. He looked up to her to understand what a successful business looked like early on. Nervis experienced that venture twofold — it was his mother’s way of providing for their family and putting him through school, and her way of bringing the community together.

His mother became the inspiration for his entrepreneurial spirit. When he was in middle school, he recalled, she sent him off to class carrying a box of watches and instructed him to get creative and sell them to his classmates.

After that, “The bug bit me and has been stuck with me,” Nervis said.

He would eventually go to New Mexico State University for business management and in 2008 he moved to Phoenix to work in financial services, an industry he would stay in for 10 years. During that time, Nervis said he became aware of injustices in the city. He particularly noticed the absence of spaces for Black people to gather and foster community.

In 2018, he left his employer to work full-time for Archwood Exchange, a marketplace he had started over a year earlier to support other small businesses in downtown Phoenix.

“The community work was really what inspired me and pushed me back into business,” Nervis said. From there, things only got bigger.

Solving problems with a vision

After moving to Phoenix, Nervis noticed almost immediately there was a lack of “third places” in the community.

Third places are spaces outside of the home and workplace where people can go to experience a sense of belonging or identity — coffee shops, gyms, parks, community centers and libraries.

According to Nervis, for Black residents, these third places don’t typically exist outside of churches or barbershops.

Archwood Exchange, a Buy Black Marketplace, began as the solution to that problem in 2016. Nervis started Archwood to facilitate community gatherings and to support Black-owned businesses. Since its inception, Archwood has hosted over 100 events, helped launch dozens of new businesses, and created over 20 local jobs.

Despite its success, Archwood still did not represent that third space Nervis was looking for. As a marketplace, Nervis felt they were shutting people out who couldn’t spend money on nonessential items.

“If you’re not in a position to buy, sometimes it feels unwelcome,” he said. “We need to create more true community spaces where you can come, you can play chess, you can read, you can hang out and you can have a conversation without feeling like you’re not adding value because you’re not spending money.”

Around this time, a community member approached Nervis with the idea of opening up a bookstore-cafe and the idea for Grassrootz was born.

“We wanted to create a space that was safe for the entire community that was devoted to education,” Nervis said.

A storefront location opened up near Archwood and Nervis began operating Grassrootz out of a small office space in the Afri-Soul Marketplace in downtown Phoenix.

2 bookshelves and ‘unprecedented times’

Grassrootz officially opened in September 2019, operating in a small office space with one bookshelf from Nervis’s