• Jumel Terrace Books

    Revolutionary & Colonial Washington Heights, Harlem, Africa, West Indies, Art, Myth, History & Literature: Slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Theology, Military, Labor, Civil Rights, Negritude, Black Power.

"An Oasis for the Unrestrained Pursuit of Knowledge"
*************And a "Nugget" in the Rubbish*************

Uptown's only bookshop specializing in local history, African & American. The shop on 160th Street, open by appointment or serendipity, faces the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the headquarters of George Washington during 1776’s Battle of Harlem Heights, & our stock addresses its significance in 18th & 20th century Revolutionary American history.

As Sugar Hill, the neighborhood has retained its reputation as the intellectual & artistic home of Black America. Jumel Terrace Books follows in the tradition of bookstores serving the community since George Young’s Book Exchange opened in 1920. Before Black Studies entered college curriculums in 1968, shops like Lewis Micheaux’s House of Common Sense & Home of Proper Propaganda & Richard B Moore’s Frederick Douglass Book Center were important sources of education, aspiration & inspiration. As did our predecessors, we buy & sell very good books on our subjects.

Jumel Terrace Books - Blog

from my forthcoming memoir, Principles of Retail.

Users shouldn’t deal and dealers shouldn’t use  Somebody other than me must have said Reading is a finer world within the world.  Presumably an unpunished vice, my relationship to literature has at times smacked of self abuse. So much so I’ve been called promiscuously well read.  It is a solitary past time, during which time you aren’t […]

Maxims

Premise:  Books Are Weapons recognizes the revolutionary effect literacy can have on reclaiming our independence from the confines of mediocrity. Literacy enables the self-determination necessary to enjoying the basic human rights. Literacy, bring a tool for coming to terms with one’s otherness, effects a change of consciousness more significantly than any other stimulant to the mind. […]

Paul Robeson’s thoughts on the Morris Jumel Mansion.

“I am an American. From my window I gaze out upon a scene that reminds me how deep-going are the roots of my people in this land. Across the street, carefully preserved as an historic site, is a colonial mansion that served as a headquarters for General George Washington in 1776, during desperate and losing […]