OUR VISION
Have you ever been transported out of your body, out of your mind, out of your position and place and community? Have you visited unknown worlds, worlds with vast possibilities and languages, spaces where your emotions and visions and dreams have been untangled and articulated and fully realized? Books have the power to take us beyond ourselves; they allow us to travel and to learn and to know. They empower us with imagination and language and movement. And they provide space that is warm and inviting and comforting, while also challenging us, pushing us, and teaching us how to love and find humility and give compassion and grace.
Birmingham is growing into a vibrant city, full of soulful and courageous communities. New restaurants and bars and art galleries feed people here; fill them with love for a city long-seen as lost and broken and forgotten. But these new spaces still leave some people on the outside, locked out by financial and cultural barriers. The growth of this special city, full of dark, deep important history, should provide the space and freedom for its citizens to imagine all futures. Shouldn’t we all be able to see ourselves woven into the pieces of a novel or dancing through stanzas of a sonnet or unraveled in the text of memoirs?
After receiving many responses from a survey we sent out in 2018, we learned that so many of us wander this city, longing for identity affirmation and validation, whether it be in a radically inclusive community space or in the pages of a book. We ache to read poetry and novels and memoirs about ourselves, our communities, our loves, our families. In a city with a complex and layered history, we find ourselves reading half-written stories. And it is not that the other half has not been written, they are just not available. There is a dearth of independent, socially minded bookstores in Birmingham. At the same time, we also find people here battling depression, loneliness, and anxiety; longing for connection and community and affirmation.
These are the queers and the femmes, black people, people of color, women, working class people, sexual assault survivors, single parents, immigrants and undocumented folks, people with different abilities, people who are not Christian, people with criminal records, sex workers, indigenous people, house-less people, witches, anarchists and socialists, folks with mental health issues, sexually deviant people. These people are also white, straight, Christian, allies, college educated. After talking with many potential patrons, it is clear that no one is immune to sadness or self-doubt. Currently, without a feminist bookstore and community space, folks comb through books at Barnes and Noble or click through titles on Amazon or watch Netflix at home, alone. Without intentional community space, opportunities for connection and support, relationship and coalition building, and mutual aid are rare.
It was in the struggle to find spaces like these, that Meagan and Katie began to dream up Burdock Book Collective. Our love of feminist literature and our passion for social justice and community organizing and our identities as queer women in connection to other marginalized and oppressed communities, made Burdock Book Collective, not only a dream, but a necessity for thriving and surviving.
Burdock Book Collective is a intersectional feminist bookstore, currently owned and run by its two scrappy feminist founders, Katie and Meagan and a core group of dedicated volunteers courageously defending every Birmingham resident’s right to an inclusive and brave space where they can browse and read and purchase radical feminist books, zines, and art. Burdock not only shares knowledge through its curated selection of books, sourced from small presses and publishers, but also provides access to “brave” space for those running from domestic violence, queer children seeking affirmation and validation in their gender identities, houseless people seeking a respite from the heavy heat of an Alabama summer, or immigrant justice organizers seeking space to lead trainings and provide assistance.
Burdock Book Collective was built with intention and love and provides curated, identity affirming sections throughout the bookstore, mapped out through anti-racist, anti-sexist, coalition building ideology that honors all customers and people. Before a brick and mortar store came into being, books and brave space were offered through small, monthly pop-ups throughout the city of Birmingham, as we tried to establish ourselves and serve as many communities in Birmingham as we could. After a generous offer to house Burdock within the Quaker Meeting House, Burdock now offers art workshops, skill shares, writing workshops, book clubs and discussion groups, community potlucks, and letter writing nights to connect with folks inside the Etowah County Detention Center.
The collective chose the name Burdock for a number of reasons. Firstly, because burdock is often seen as a weed, a social construction, something a farmer or gardener does not want in their garden. The collective hopes to represent and serve all peoples, peoples deemed unnecessary, burdensome, disposable. Burdock is also healing. Its cleansing properties induce immune response, lower blood sugars, protect DNA against mutation. The root has been consumed in Asia for centuries and its fruit is valued by traditional Chinese medicine as a blood purifier- as a cure for sore throats and colds. It is known to reduce or treat eczema, acne, gout, cancer even. So despite it being considered a weed, Burdock is a powerful healer. Just like the folks marginalized by society, who are healers, organizers, justice seekers, artists, lovers, creators. Burdock Book Collective is a place for dreaming, scheming, learning, growing, reading, imagining and imagining and creating the future we all need.