Black Lit Library encourages children of color to see themselves in stories

Liberation Station is a mobile children’s pop-up bookstore offering over 500 titles centered on the positive representation of African American children with access to over 10,000 titles for distribution. Victoria Scott-Miller, Liberation Station’s co-founder was inspired after not being able to find books that her own children of color could relate to. Liberation Station was designed to uplift the Black narrative and increase Black representation in literature so that all children of color can find stories that accurately and positively reflect their own life experiences.

“With this library we wanted to go into unconventional spaces where children of color might not necessarily feel welcome,” Scott-Miller said. “A lot of children of color are intimidated by the idea of college, so we wanted to place our Black Lit Library in a space where they would unknowingly grow comfortable with the idea of college.”

The goal with this library is to encourage children of color to feel inspired to to pursue higher education and not to be afraid of learning.

Presently, the library has 19 different books that al celebrate Black culture, each carefully selected by Liberation Station.

“The Duke Gardens wants to be a place where everyone can see themselves belonging,” said Kavanah Anderson, education program coordinator at the Gardens. “Gardens are one of the more surprising places to learn and connect with nature.” 

“I love the fact that the library is modeled after a classroom,” Scott-Miller said, “because it’s this aspect that allows students to learn not only about the garden space, but about themselves.” 

Beyond being promoted to children of color, Scott-Miller believes the Black Lit Library is relevant to everyone. 

“This library is showing us what we lack,” she said. “We should all be concerned with representation being normalized. … Society needs to reach a point where having black literature isn’t a surprise and is readily available.”

The Black Lit Library intends to be more than just a place to read — it wants to become a symbol of black advancement and inclusion in our society.