"Our goal is to ensure we're a Black-owned bookstore, but we don't have only Black authors in the store," says Phillip Agnew, co-owner of Roots. "We believe that Black people, that people in this city, should have access to all of the knowledge that is available to them in the world."
Books run in the Agnew family. Phillip's father worked as a book merchant in Chicago, and about 70 percent of the shop's current stock is sourced from his collection. The rest comes from community donations. The shop is a true passion project for its owners, longtime organizers and educators in Miami. Isaiah Thomas is an assistant principal at Paul L. Dunbar K-8 Center in Overtown and was born and raised in Miami-Dade County. Agnew, meanwhile, moved to the city from Chicago in 2012 to help start Dream Defenders, a nonprofit activist organization launched in the wake of Trayvon Martin's killing.
A few months later, he was joined by his brother Danny, whose portrait adorns the bookstore's back wall. Danny and Thomas helped start another organization, Roots Collective, in 2017. The group ran a business incubator and community fridge on NW Seventh Ave. until 2023, when their landlord evicted them. Earlier that same year, Danny was killed in a multi-car accident on I-95. So when the building's owner contacted Thomas to set up a business on the spot, they knew exactly what they wanted to do.
"Danny always wanted a bookstore," Agnew says. "So the bookstore is a continuation of the legacy of my brother...and also a recognition of the eternal importance of education, the written word, the joy that one gets from being inside a bookstore and seeing all of these books, all these little trips to different places and different experiences. And it's also a love letter to Liberty City."
Quade Books specializes in new works in English and Spanish, focusing on literature, art, design, and children's books.
Quade Books photo
A Spate of Openings
Roots is just the latest in a wave of bookstores that have opened in South Florida since the pandemic, significantly expanding the literary retail scene. Last year, two new first-run bookshops debuted in the city: Posman Books in downtown Miami and Best of Miami winner Quade Books in Aventura. This summer, the Florida-based romance bookstore chain Steamy Lit will open a new location in Miami Springs. Even Barnes & Noble is opening two new locations. They join the likes of existing shops such as the art and design-focused Dalé Zine, secondhand shop Bookleggers, French and Kreyol bookstore Libreri Mapou, and the longstanding local independent chain Books & Books. Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books and chair of the Miami Book Fair's Advisory & Strategic Planning Committee, says he's happy to see more bookstores open in the city.
"When you tell me about a new bookstore opening, I get really excited," he says. "And I love stores that become communities."
In particular, Kaplan is very supportive of Roots. "The work they’re doing is really fantastic, serving a community that was a book desert. They’re very passion- and mission-based, and they’re gonna be a really good third space. I give them a lot of credit. It's not the easiest thing to start a bookstore."
Not all of them are mom-and-pop shops, however. Posman Books opened in late 2024 in the Miami Worldcenter development directly north of the city's downtown, one door down from the Museum of Ice Cream. Carrying a wide range of books and merchandise, from fiction bestsellers and art books to manga, toys and games, to home goods, Posman aims to attract a different type of consumer than the city's more community-oriented shops, filling the general-stock mall-bookstore hole left behind by Books-a-Million and Borders.
"We set out to be the opposite of the internet," says Lance Edmonds, brand manager for the chain. "It's very tactile, it's very colorful, very loud, happy music. There are no section titles in the bookstore because we want people to browse and to really find everything they need, from books to candles to toys for kids. I like to think that it's a place that you can find a gift for anybody."
Edmonds says the company was enticed to launch in Miami after fielding an offer by the Worldcenter developers, who have filled the gleaming new complex with a mix of restaurants and corporate retailers such as Starbucks, Apple, Lululemon, and the Container Store. "We always look for heavy foot traffic," says Edmonds. Originally a single location in New York, first in Grand Central Station before moving to Chelsea Market, the company now considers itself a national brand rather than a humble independent bookseller. Including Miami, the chain now has six locations in five states and has plans for further expansion.
That ambition is reflected in the company's lack of localization. Aside from carrying more Spanish-language stock, it's mostly kept the Miami location intentionally consistent with its other stores. "We don't try to react to each individual market. We're trying to basically bring a New York City bookstore to all these different locations. We found that trying to tailor things to every audience, you sort of get away from your primary purpose."
This differentiates Posman from a smaller chain like Quade Books, which opened in Aventura Mall in 2024. The fourth location of an independent bookstore chain based in Argentina, Quade has adapted to the local market by selling a bilingual selection of books from diverse genres, including an extensive children's section. It's also held book signings and other events. Posman, meanwhile, has no plans to interact with the wider literary community in Miami or serve as a third place like Books & Books or Roots.
"I don't like to think of us as an independent bookstore or community sort of bookstore, because while we do serve the community by being there, we leave author events and things like that to the other independent bookstores," says Edmonds. "Most of the time when you're holding events, you're keeping people from shopping in that area. And it's just not really what we do."
A Small, but Vital, Community Space
Roots, meanwhile, has made efforts to bring people in. Along with readings and signings, Agnew plans to start a book club and host film screenings. The owners have also gone into the community to raise awareness of the shop. "We make sure they know this is a community space that's open to them. Whenever we have a book reading, we put speakers out on the street so people can listen to the event as it's happening, even if they don't want to come in, or feel intimidated, or there's no room. It's not a huge space." There's an acute awareness that Roots is more than a simple bookstore. It's a vital resource in a community that has been, in Agnew's words, "devastated by disinvestment, by the war on drugs, and now by development and climate gentrification." It's also a link to the area's past: Agnew shows off a recent donation, a historical survey of buildings in Liberty City that serves as a record of the once-thriving business district on this street.
"Here's our building," he says, pointing out the small storefront. "It used to be the Dade County Detective Agency, because the police officers in the city would never research or investigate crimes committed against Black people, so they had to have their own detective agency."
Thomas, who has roots in the area going back to his grandfather, also feels the significance of Roots' mission. "I always knew the importance of this street," he says. "So when I received that call that a building was available on 15th Ave., I knew this was the place. Our community changes so much — for us to have a spot that represents Black Miami, it's going to be important forever in this community."
