A tweet of gratitude gave Harriett’s Bookshop a boost in support and sales

Business had been slow the last few weeks at Harriett’s Bookshop, and its owner, Jeannine A. Cook, was in her feelings. She tweeted these two sentences: “We’ve only had a few customers the last few weeks. Thankful to those who are helping keep us afloat.” Attached to the post was a picture of a customer holding actress Viola Davis’ recent memoir, Finding Me.

And, whoa, did Cook get hit with the glory and doused with some extra special, super duper, heavy blessings: hundreds of retweets and thousands of dollars in orders.

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“This one tweet has made such an impact,” Cook said over the phone, her Philly accent flushed with joy. “I’m still placing orders. I’m still getting phone calls, and people are still retweeting. And our message was also shared by people on Instagram.

“This is a great example of what we can do outside the normal confines of what people consider activism. It’s not a march, but that doesn’t make it any less important.”

One of the first of Cook’s 48,000 followers to retweet her thank-you to customers on Aug. 11 was Greg Carr, chair of the department of Afro-American studies at Howard University. Carr, a Temple graduate and the Philadelphia School District’s first resident scholar on race and culture, has over 88,000 Twitter followers. “Let’s send our Philly Sistren some support,” he tweeted with a link to Harriett’s Bookshop and the hashtag #illadelphForLife.

Twitter did its job. High-profile users, including Keisha N. Blain, Brown University’s professor of Africana studies; Kimberly Drew, former Metropolitan Museum of Art’s social media manager and coauthor of Black Futures; and Rebecca A. Hare Cokley, disability rights activist, all retweeted the post.

A slew of Philadelphia-area and national bookstores lent social media support, including Drexel University, Cook’s alma mater. And dozens of writing nonprofits like The Philadelphia Writer’s Conference cyber-shouted out their love.

Supporters bought books for themselves, friends, and as gifts for back-to-schoolers. One person donated $5,000 in books to Harriett’s Bookshop’s education partner, Treehouse Books, with one stipulation: All of the books had to be purchased from Harriett’s. And a steady stream of readers have been seen leaving the book shop, their finds tied with frayed brown twine that Cook uses to remind customers of the way her ancestors carried their schoolbooks after they were emancipated, and it was no longer illegal to teach Black people to read.

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As independent bookstores are closing, like Shakespeare & Co. in Rittenhouse Square, which shut its doors in May, and books about Black American history are being banned in schools and libraries, Cook said her two bookstores — Harriett’s in Fishtown and Ida’s in Collingswood, named after civil rights activist Ida B. Wells — are brick-and-mortar testimonials to African American resistance and resilience.

“We stand as a space for communities to come together to debate and discuss real ideas,” Cook said. “That we are still here is a testament to the people who stood with us: bought books, bought totes. They aren’t only supporting Harriett’s Bookshop, but self-education, knowledge and the idea that we will never allow anything outside of us to stop us from reading and coming to our own conclusions.”