Cori

The Local Book pusher

It all began with a love for reading.

As a child, frequenting the West Wyandotte Public Library was a norm for Your Local Book Pusher and owner, Cori Smith. Growing up and always towards Black history and literature was a constant theme in books she surrounded herself with. After graduating from Clark Atlanta, she decided to shift gears into nonprofit work. After three years in nonprofit the idea to serve people differently began to take root.

Recognizing that there are simply not enough spaces for Black and Brown folks to call our own, and be celebrated in the stories that center our experiences pushed this dream into a reality. It was the driving force for BLK + BRWN. During the pandemic (2021), we opened our storefront in Midtown Kansas City, Mo, on a day forever special to our community— Juneteenth.

Around the nine month mark, we began to experience different forms of online attacks ranging from zoom call hijackings to having our entire website hacked and ultimately deleted to being the topic of ultra conservative “reverse racist” podcast slander. What this confirmed was a few things: (1) the “why” is still so important— we are here to amplify our stories AND create safe spaces for us to exist; (2) People will hate simply because they feel they are entitled to EVERYTHING, and their privilege has been able to enforce that as a standard (which again refer back to point 1); and (3) the work we do is timely, impactful, and working in ways to disrupt the constant practice of othering non-white experiences and lives here in Kansas City and elsewhere.

But nevertheless we have prevailed and will continue to do the work!

#BUYBLACKBOOKS

Interested in Collaborating?

Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly! We can't wait to hear from you!

Our bookstore works really hard to serve our community on all fronts so feel free to set up a time to chat and see how we can work together in the future. If none of the dates work, feel free to reach out via email and we can chat more about ideas.