4:00

school and when I was having kind

4:03

of trouble as far as, you know,

4:05

New York troubles how that goes. But

4:08

I went to Riverside Park and I brought

4:10

Good Woman by Lucille Clifton

4:13

and I read the whole thing. It's just a

4:15

poetry book, not just a poetry book because I'm

4:18

a poetry girl, but a

4:20

poetry book changed my

4:23

whole, that shifted something. And I think,

4:25

you know, whatever your favorite book

4:27

is, it's such a personal experience. It's like

4:29

a party of DNA at a certain point.

4:31

It really, really is. Rosa

4:36

found her piece in the NYC Madness

4:38

in bookstores. Places like Mercer

4:40

Books by Washington Square Park or Strand

4:42

Bookstore by Union Square. Places

4:44

not dedicated to black revolutionary literature, but if

4:47

you look through those used bins long enough,

4:49

you just might find something. Rosa was in

4:52

New York trying to make it in the

4:54

fashion industry, but as her used book collection

4:56

grew, it was like an old passion was

4:58

trying to resurface. She just kept

5:00

on buying used books. I

5:02

was so focused on,

5:04

I really thought that fashion

5:08

was gonna kind of be my thing. My

5:11

family and I always were surrounded by

5:13

books, so it was almost like that

5:15

thing that's entirely in your face that

5:17

you don't recognize the value of it

5:19

until you're away from it. But

5:24

her fashion dreams didn't work out. After she

5:26

graduated, she just never found that job of

5:28

her dreams. With her lease coming

5:30

to an end in 2016, she decided

5:33

she'd move back to Atlanta for a little while.

5:35

She cleared her head and maybe go back

5:37

to New York soon after. At this point

5:39

you have your own collection. So I,

5:41

oh yeah, so I had been collecting from

5:43

all of those bookstores for a long time.

5:45

Like if you ask my friends that

5:48

were around during kind of

5:50

that era, this

5:52

makes so much sense.

5:54

Like the first thing they say is like,

5:57

yeah, well, duh. So I was collecting that

5:59

entire time. And all this stuff is just

6:01

like under your bed or something? No, literally

6:04

I would be sleeping with books. Because you

6:06

know the spaces, you know how big the

6:08

apartments are in New York. There were books

6:10

in my bed all the time.

6:13

But they were stacked on the floor. They

6:15

were, you know, I didn't have these like, wasn't

6:18

space for bookshelves. But

6:22

when Rosa got back to Atlanta, she decided

6:24

to reimagine her future. I wanted

6:26

to have a bookstore because that's the, those were

6:28

the places that I found solace when I was

6:30

in New York. And I felt

6:33

like I could kind of breathe for a

6:35

second when I was in those spaces. And

6:37

I liked the relationships that I developed with

6:39

the booksellers and the people that were

6:41

there. And I just, the

6:44

only kind of part about the bookstores

6:47

in New York were, you know, the

6:50

inventory was lacking a lot of

6:53

black material. And

6:55

you know, when you have a

6:58

small used bookstore and the

7:00

bookseller or the book buyer is a staff of

7:02

white people, you know, they're looking at what they're

7:04

looking at. You're going to have a lot of

7:07

Jack Kerouac, Yeah, I guess, exactly. You know, you're

7:09

going to have the white classics. No,

7:12

there's just... The white classics. Exactly.

7:14

Rosa decided she would open up a store with the

7:16

black classics, but not entirely dedicated

7:18

to the stuff she loved. She

7:21

wanted everyone interested in black history,

7:23

philosophy, poetry, and even throwback magazines

7:25

to find something they can attach

7:27

themselves to after keeps. So

7:29

I wanted to create a

7:31

space where I was kind of putting

7:34

all of our work in one place and

7:37

not really specifying what type of

7:39

work it was. It was just

7:41

whatever our work is. I wasn't

7:43

trying to define what like liberation looks like

7:46

to somebody. And you can only read this

7:48

or you can only read that. So she

7:50

got word of an open space on Auburn

7:52

Ave and jumped at the opportunity. The

7:54

store was designed by Rosa and has a very

7:56

retro vibe. It's not so big. You could probably

7:58

fit about ten... for keeps

8:00

in your average Barnes and Noble. There's

8:02

a poster of the Brown vs. Board of

8:04

Education Supreme Court decision and art pieces by

8:06

local artists on the wall. There's only one

8:08

rug in the middle of the store covering

8:10

the cement floor. There's dozens of books for

8:12

sale sitting up against the brick wall on

8:14

these small shelves. The books on

8:16

the walls are older and some are copies from

8:19

original publishing as far back as the 40s. And

8:40

in the center of the store, there's a

8:42

long table absolutely covered in books and magazines.

8:44

Like you can't actually see what color the

8:47

table is because there's so much on it.

9:15

And you might catch Rosa's old collection

9:18

from her New York days on the

9:20

table. But there's used books

9:22

on all types of subjects. That's

9:45

a big part of it. But we also

9:47

have these stickies. Sometimes you read

9:49

a book with some annotations in already. It's

9:52

great because sometimes the thing that they

9:54

were confused about, you're like, yeah, that is kind

9:56

of confusing. It's great. Yeah, there's a conversation. Exactly.

10:00

It's like a cosign. You feel

10:02

like you're understood even more. What

10:06

do you think? Because

10:09

a lot of people get books now,

10:11

like if they if they go to a brick

10:14

and mortar, like I'm talking about across the country,

10:16

they go to like a you

10:19

know, like a Barnes and Noble or people get

10:21

their books on Amazon. Yes. Right. And

10:24

what do you think is lost

10:26

in the like not having you

10:30

know, not being able to come here or here

10:32

and maybe even independent bookstores in general, but

10:34

like, you know. Agreed. So I

10:37

think the searching process, the digging process, I

10:39

guess is what like record folks call it,

10:41

but just the digging of it all. So

10:43

I don't have any specific genres. It's not

10:45

blocked off by author. It's not alphabetized.

10:49

I know people think it's because I'm lazy,

10:51

but really it's because we're

10:54

like, wait a minute. But really, it's

10:56

because I enjoy the digging, right? Yeah.

10:58

I want people to be able to

11:00

look through everything and not immediately go

11:02

for the thing

11:04

that they think they want. And maybe they'll have

11:06

to pass through a few other things that they

11:08

find out that they like before they get to

11:10

the thing that they've already decided that they like,

11:12

right? So I think

11:15

with like Amazon or whatever

11:17

bookseller you're using online, it's

11:20

hard to go through that like process where

11:22

you're where you're able to kind of

11:24

scan through a bunch of other things to get to

11:26

what you want. So really kind of limits your limits

11:33

your ability to see

11:35

everything. And that's what

11:38

I tell people when they're like, wait, so where's your poetry?

11:40

I'm like, you're going to have to find it. Rosa

11:45

came into her own digging and used bookstores

11:47

and now for keeps provides that feeling for

11:50

its visitors. Plus it's full of the books

11:52

and topics Rosa was digging for. So

11:55

I've read that folks call this

11:57

place an interactive museum. more

14:00

than once, which is crazy. So

14:03

I've never seen anything written about him

14:05

before. And it gives people this kind

14:07

of reassurance that I feel, there's

14:10

a very, and not to sound too corny,

14:12

but there's a very spiritual nature about the

14:14

space that I think people get drawn to

14:16

the things that they need. And

14:18

watching that happen is really

14:22

an experience that I almost, I

14:24

can't explain, that I also wasn't

14:26

necessarily anticipating. What

14:29

is your favorite part of running for

14:32

Keeps Books? That's

14:37

a good question. Because as

14:40

far as, I will start with the fact

14:42

that I still love collecting the work. So

14:45

I just love finding new stuff. I

14:47

love finding stuff that I've already had,

14:49

that's not here anymore, that I can

14:51

get again. The part of collecting and,

14:53

you know, going down different rabbit holes

14:55

and finding new writers, new artists, new

14:57

illustrators, new poets that I've never heard

14:59

of are very exciting because

15:01

I feel like everybody deserves their moment

15:03

in the sun kind of situation. And

15:05

to be able to get them in

15:07

here and the chance that another person

15:10

will read them is exciting

15:12

for me. I love that. While

15:15

we were wrapping up and I was heading out,

15:18

I saw a copy of the biography of Richard

15:20

Wright, my favorite author ever on the wall, a

15:22

copy from its original publishing back in 1968. And

15:25

I just had to buy it. For

15:28

all my fellow book lovers, if you find yourself

15:31

in Atlanta, for Keeps is right on the corner

15:33

of Auburn Ave in Piedmont, right by the Georgia

15:35

State campus. And if you're lucky, you'll

15:38

meet Rosa. I

16:08

want to thank Rosa Duffy for joining me for

16:10

today's episode. This

16:12

podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura and

16:14

Stitra Studios. Our

16:16

production team includes Dylan Therese,

16:18

Doug Baldinger, Chris Naka, Camille

16:20

Stanley, Manolo Morales, Gabby

16:23

Gladney. Our technical director

16:25

is Casey Holford. Our theme

16:27

and end credit music is by Sam Tindall.

16:29

This episode was sound designed and mixed by

16:32

Luz Fleming. If you want

16:34

to learn more, be sure to visit atlasobscura.com.

16:36

There's a link in our episode description. And

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