Grassrootz: More than a bookstore

Nestled in between the Black Theater Troupe and The Science Center on Washington Street is Arizona’s first and only black-owned bookstore. Grassrootz bookstore is the brainchild of Ali Nervis, An Alabama-bred activist, and modest revolutionary-- and for the past 2 years, he has been creating a space to bring a sense of community and knowledge for black culture in the city of Phoenix.

It started in a hallway within the Afri-soul marketplace, a duplex-like shared space, specifically geared toward African-American goods and services. Nervis had been focused on a previous business plan that didn’t quite go as planned, but he found solace in the nook of this marketplace.

“Five years ago I had co-created a company called Archwood Exchange, It was something like a Walgreens but with black-owned products. Then when the contract on the intended building fell through the idea sort of went with it,” said Nervis, “but then I had met the owner of the marketplace, and realized the space she was creating aligned with what I wanted to bring forth with Archwood.”

He shifted his plan a bit, bought the quintessential 6-shelf wooden bookcase he now endearingly calls “Brownie,” and set up shop in the corner of the marketplace. The inception of Grassrootz was long humble before it gained any true momentum “At first all the books I had were from my house--they were all these pro-revolutionary and downtrodden books on black strife then my wife said ‘nobody wants to read all of them sad books’ and I realized that she had a fair point,” chuckled Nervis in reminiscence.

So with the direction of his wife, he looked into buying assorted genres of black-authored books wholesale, but bringing in new books and expanding the catalog meant the need for a bigger space. So he looked to Dr.Asha Little, the building owner and just one of the black women he credits his growth and successes to.

“The Marketplace had shared a wall with this empty space for a while-- Ali asked about potentially knocking the wall out as an expansion for his bookstore,” said Asha Little, “There was no defiance on my end I saw the vision before he finished explaining--The project spanned over a month in the early part of 2019, and it became what you see now.”

Grassrootz officially opened On July 4th,2019 but subsequently saw a second opening on November the following year due to the Pandemic business closures. The economic catastrophe that the pandemic brought, inspired some creative innovation on Nerivs’ end to keep the bookstore afloat. “We got some business relief grants for the first month but that could only cover that month, so I had to figure something out fast or that was going to be the end of the bookstore.”

Nervis looked to his mother for guidance and soon came the idea of a virtual storytime, “This was before zoom and virtual learning, work and school all came to a stop and it was the first time parents were ever around their kids all day long, so many of them found the storytime to be a moment of alone time while their kids enjoyed a book.”

Throughout the week Nervis would feature black authors, business owners, and notable individuals to read a children’s book of their choosing via Facebook Live. It proved to be a prominent success, as parents began inboxing Nervis for the books to buy after the live storytime. Nervis bought the books on demand and began shipping them out to those who ordered. “It was completely unexpected, we were just doing something to keep the business operating in some form, didn’t think it would be something that would sustain the bookstore during that period,” said Nervis.

Then the globalized BLM movement ignited the buy black trend during the summer of 2020, Nervis says that was something that really catapulted Grassrootz into national attention. “Alphabetically we sat on the top of the list of black-owned bookstores in the country, Oprah was featuring black authors and everyone got into reading, so bookstores like Grassrootz were where people looked to find these books.” Said Nervis. And overnight he saw a boom in business with people looking to order books such as White Fragility and The New Jim Crow. The only issue he was getting more orders than he was able to fulfill.

“The orders would not stop even after I had technically run out of stock--It didn’t occur to me to disenable the button online, I was in shock and I got a bit of anxiety from it but it got figured out and we made it happen.” Said Nervis. Not a terrible problem to have, and with a well-written memo on his behalf pinned to the website denoting the delay, and patience from his consumers he was able to get books out and get some new ones in stock.

Grassrootz has been riding the buy black wave but it looking forward to new and exciting ventures to encapsulate what Grassrootz is and can be. Such as, the juice bar that Nervis hopes to be fully operational in quarter one of next year, or the upcoming Health Expo they’ll be holding next month. Grassrootz falls under a much larger ideology of the name’s origin, it’s truly a grassroots operation that looks to fundamental cause and change.

“I want to build wealth for black people and help remedy the problem at the root, and it starts with business. This space is not only a bookstore, it’s a multi-use co-op for other black people. We have people doing a little bit of everything in here and it’s all to help accumulate that economic growth for our community and to create a network that can be replicated in other cities. I want to create a blueprint.” Said Nervis

What once was a bookshelf in the hallway has now blossomed and bloomed into a mission of monumental purpose.