Mother and daughter open first bookstore, coffee shop to help historically black neighborhood

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A mother and daughter are opening up a bookstore and coffee shop in a historically black neighborhood in Sherwood. The mom, State Representative Angie Nixon, told Action News Jax this started as a dream for her daughter. Now, it’s a mission for her community.

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The Sherwood community will have its first bookstore and coffee shop where the majority of the authors are African Americans.

State Representative Angie Nixon is opening up a business called Café Resistance Bookstore at 5007 Soutel Drive. She says the idea started with her daughter Natalie.

Nixon said, “We wrote a book together because she didn’t like to read. We wrote several comics together, and we won One Spark.”

One Spark is a multi-day event where creators display their projects in a multi-gallery venue. That was when Natalie was seven years old. During that age, she wrote three comics. One book was called “The Adventures of Moxie McGriff” which she was featured in.

Nixion told me she will use this bookstore to help increase literacy in her community by educating young people on the importance of reading.

Nixon said, “In addition to that, that’s been some book challenges and bans in the state of Florida as it relates to the teaches of African American History. And allowing black books to be in the schools. So, we wanted to offer up an alternative here at Café Resistance Bookstore.”

Nixon said she wanted to help uplift the black community one page at a time.

State Representative Angie Nixon said she’s expecting her bookstore to be open in mid-March.

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