On a late afternoon in October, as the sunlight turns soft and golden, Suzannah Hasbroek sits in a comfy chair on the broad front porch of Charis Books & More in Decatur and looks across Candler Street to the campus of her alma mater, Agnes Scott College.
“As a queer person, it’s nice to hang out somewhere where your identity is seen and understood,” she says.
Inside the store, co-owner Sara Luce Look stacks books in her office. “Charis has always been a de facto community space, even when there’s nothing going on, because we’re a public feminist space that is open seven days a week,” she says. “You don’t have to have a reason to come.”
Hasbroek is visiting Atlanta and the feminist, LGBTQ-friendly bookstore she loves from her home in Massachusetts for Pride Weekend. She’s sorry the timing won’t work for her to attend Charis’ upcoming 50th birthday bash.
That milestone is rare for a feminist bookstore.
“There were more than 50 feminist bookstores in the South about 30 years ago, of which Charis and Bag Lady in Charlotte are the only ones left,” says Rose Norman, a retired University of Alabama English professor who cofounded the women’s studies program there and has chronicled the rise and decline of feminist bookstores.
“And there were about 130 in the United States and Canada,” she adds. “Now there are about 13 or 14 [Charis counts about 25], and almost none of them are that old.”
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Fifty years ago, in 1974, the term “sexual harassment” was brand-new and “glass ceiling” had not been coined yet. Women could still be fired for getting pregnant and were just that year able to get credit cards in their own names.
That same year, Linda Bryant and Barbara Borgman, with help from a cash infusion by philanthropist Edie Cofrin, opened a bookstore in Little Five Points called Charis Books & More, named for the Greek word for “grace” or “gift” that is central to Christian theology.
Bryant had taught high school and both she and Borgman had worked for the Christian organization Young Life. They envisioned Charis (pronounced KARE-us) as a Christian bookstore, but one that also had lots of books by women as well as racially diverse books, especially children’s books.
“It was never about a particular theology,” Bryant says, “more about a radical understanding of what it means to be Christian: Thomas Merton, the Berrigan brothers and Clarence Jordan’s “Cotton Patch Gospel (Version of Matthew and John).”
Little Five Points was not then the bustling commercial hipster hub it later would become.
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Credit: Bita Honarvar
“We wanted to provide a place of beauty and encouragement and respite and joy, in a neighborhood where it felt like we were needed,” Bryant recalls. “With the gun shops and the pawn shops and liquor stores and the bars, it just felt like a place where maybe some beautiful books and a pot of tea and a rocking chair might be welcome.”
Looking back now, she says, “I don’t think when you’re 26 you have any idea what you’re doing; there’s a kind of courage that comes with not knowing.”
When feminist publishing houses began to grow around that time, and publishers slowly started adding more LGBTQ titles, Charis moved away from being a Christian bookstore to become a feminist one.
“Over the years, we have continued to expand what that means,” says Bryant. “It does not mean that we are a women’s bookstore — we have always known that the wholeness we dream of includes men and women. And in recent years, we have understood that such gender designations are way too limiting.”
The store began holding author appearances and attracted big names (Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, John Lewis) as well as panels and workshops.
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Over the years, Charis notched three milestones:
• In 1996, Charis Circle was launched as a separate nonprofit organization that works with the for-profit bookstore. Charis Circle stages the author appearances, workshops and counseling groups at the bookstore. Upcoming events include Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry and author of “Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto,” in conversation with Tayari Jones Nov. 13 at First Baptist Church of Decatur, and Danez Smith, editor of “Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes,” Dec. 6.
“There aren’t many intergenerational spaces in Atlanta where an 18-year-old can sit next to an 80-year-old and have a real conversation,” says E.R. Anderson, executive director of Charis Circle, about the events they sponsor.
“There are not that many interracial spaces in Atlanta where people can really talk about the issues of the day, about books, about movies and art and all those things with someone that lives on the other side of the city.”
• In 1998, Look became a co-owner after joining the staff in 1994. Bryant retired in 2006 and Angela Gabriel, a pre-K teacher who started at Charis as a volunteer, also became a co-owner.
“I’ve always loved books, and my passion for books became even greater once I started using the books that Charis provides,” Gabriel says. “If you think back to the ‘90s, diversity and inclusion and seeing Black and brown children in books was not the norm as it is now and as it should be. But Charis has always put that at the forefront.”
• In 2019, Charis relocated from Little Five Points to a former house with ample parking on Candler Street that Agnes Scott owned.
Charis had been struggling in Little Five Points, Anderson says, mainly from a lack of parking and concerns about safety.
Meanwhile, Agnes Scott’s textbook seller Follett wanted to move away from small campuses and go online.
So Anderson and Elizabeth Hackett, associate professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Agnes Scott worked together to birth the plan that would reinvent Charis. In addition to its usual stock of feminist and LGBTQ-friendly books and programming, the bookstore now sells Agnes Scott swag like sweatshirts and mugs with the school logo on them.
“I miss the funky vitality and the radical history of Little Five Points,” says Anderson, who also works at the store, “but I don’t miss how hard it was on our customers … because we didn’t have good parking and some of them didn’t feel safe anymore.”
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Charis has survived Amazon.com, big box bookstores and many years of shaky finances, and is now more financially stable than it has ever been, says Look.
Which is yet another reason to throw a celebration. Charis celebrates its 50th birthday with a series of events beginning with an evening of music, poetry and dancing featuring the Indigo Girls Nov. 2 and ending with an in-store birthday party Nov. 9.
The celebration’s theme is “Take root among the stars,” a quote from Octavia Butler, whose 1993 science fiction novel, “The Parable of the Sower,” was set in the then-distant year of 2024.
“We’re saying with this birthday party, we want to be rooted among the stars, meaning we are looking to the future,” says Anderson.
“We want to be around for another 50 years,” he adds. “That feels possible.”
EVENT PREVIEW
Charis Books & More. 184 S. Candler St., Decatur. 404-524-0304, www.charisbooksandmore.com
50th birthday festivities
Take Root Among the Stars. Indigo Girls perform; speakers include Whiting Award winner Alexis Pauline Gumbs, performance artist Ra Malika Imhotep and others. 7 p.m. Nov. 2. $50. Letitia Pate Evans Dining Hall at Agnes Scott, 155 S. Candler St., Decatur. chariscircle.networkforgood.com.
Storytime with Rebecca Walker. Alice Walker’s daughter shares her new children’s book “Time for Us.” 2 p.m. Nov. 3 at Charis Books and More.
Poet Camonghne Felix. 7 p.m. Nov. 4. Free. Agnes Scott College Alston Student Center., 141 E. College Ave., Decatur.
Welcoming Wonder: An Election Day Writing Drop-In. With Nya S. Abernathy and E.R. Anderson. 4-7 p.m. Nov. 5. Free. Charis Books & More.
Parallels from the Parables: Community Art Making. With Barry Lee and Noah Grigni. 6 p.m. Nov. 6. Free. Charis Books & More.
“Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me.” Author Glory Edim will be in conversation with Denene Millner. 6:30 p.m. Nov. 7. Free. Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave. NE, Atlanta.
50th Birthday Flash Tattoos. With tattooist Gracie Williams. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Nov. 8. $50-$150. Charis Books & More.
50th Birthday In-store Party. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Nov. 9. Free. Charis Books & More.
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