Authors and literacy activists gather at We Act Radio to discuss opening the Charnice Milton bookstore in Anacostia. (Photo by Christina Sturdivant)
Native Washingtonians, authors, and literary activists gathered this morning to discuss the importance of a bookstore named in honor of journalist Charnice Milton, who would have been 30 years old today if she had not been fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in Southeast.
“If we want to be tough on crime, we have to get tough on literacy,” said Kymone Freeman, co-founder of We Act Radio, at a press conference today.
As police work to solve Milton’s two-year-old murder, Freeman assured about a dozen people who gathered at the radio station that “we’re in this for long haul—we’re here to do the work.”
We Act Radio, an Anacostia-based media outlet, began collecting books in February for a project called Bookapalooza. 27-year-old LJM, a former educator in Congress Heights, told DCist that she launched the book drive “to establish a small library in every child’s home” in communities with the highest populations of illiterate residents.
Only 13.1 percent of students in Ward 8 met or exceeded expectations for English skills last year on the PARCC exam, the city’s annual assessment that tracks students’ math and English skill levels. Students in Ward 7 came had the second lowest rate, at 16.2 percent.
Studies have also shown that adults who read at lowest levels of functional literacy are most likely to live in Wards 5, 7, and 8—with nearly half of them residing east of the Anacostia River. These adults struggle to do things like fill out job applications, read to their children, or decipher a medical prescription.
Bookapalooza began receiving “massive amounts of donations” through events, partnerships, and marketing through the hashtag #weluvbooks, according to LJM.
After a community conversation, as well as local writer John Muller pointing out to Freeman that there are no bookstores east of the Anacostia River (the closest thing was a vending machine that distributed free children’s books for two summers), a group of community members decided to open the first one in more than two decades. It will be located in We Act’s basement, where the books are currently being stored.
The group then decided to name the bookstore after Milton, who was a native Washingtonian, avid reader, and a reporter for Capital Community News, which publishes outlets like The Hill Rag, MidCity DC, and East of the River.
Milton, who lived in Ward 7’s Benning Heights, had reported on ANC meetings and neighborhood happenings for Capital Community News beginning 2012. She was changing buses on her way home from covering a community meeting when she was shot near the intersection of Good Hope and Naylor Roads SE.
Police said that someone on a dirt bike fired at her, but she wasn’t the intended target. Her family members have said that she was used as a human shield.
“Had that been a book in that young man or female’s hand, the outcome would have been different,” said Kevin Bell, at the press conference, referring to Milton’s killer.
Bell, founder of the program Books and Breakfast, said he’s partnering to bring the bookstore to fruition “to replace each gun here in Southeast… with a book.”
Aiyi’nah Ford, an eighth-generation Washingtonian and executive director of the Future Foundation, stressed that improving literacy rates among children and adults can decrease crime, displacement, gentrification, and racism.
And, she argues, residents shouldn’t have to rely on outsiders to make it happen. “Community is all we need to build what we must have,” Ford said.
The press conference also included remarks by Carolivia Herron, a former Harvard professor who grew up in Ward 7 and has written books such as “Nappy Hair”; Dr. Courtney Davis, author of “A is for Anacostia” and founder of the East of the River book festival; and Christine Turner Jackson, a Ward 8 native who wrote the book “Pitch Black” about her father’s experience playing high school baseball in D.C. in the 1950s.
In addition to the bookstore, Freeman says that organizers are asking Douglass Development, which owns a property on the corner of Good Hope and MLK Avenue SE, to create a literacy and gun violence mural in honor of Milton, and petitioning the Newseum to add her name to their list of slain journalists.
In order to transform the basement into a store and reading lounge, they have launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $180,000 by next month. If funded, Freeman said the bookstore could open before Kwanzaa (they are only at $400 right now).
He said that throughout the summer, organizers and We Act interns will reach out to city council members to back the project. They are also seeking support from the Fraternal Order of Police, the police union, and the Metropolitan Police Department.
“This is a tremendous recognition of a great young woman’s life whose commitment to God and community rises above even the most hostile acts of mankind,” said Kenneth Mcclendon, Milton’s step-father, in a release. “This is a sincerely special way to offer her name as testament to the power of reading and the hope of reviving a community.”
