For over 40 years, 84-year-old legend Ms. Willa Robinson has poured her soul into Willa’s Books & Vinyl—the oldest and longest-standing Black bookstore in the state of Missouri.
After surviving the heartbreaking murder of her daughter and granddaughter, Ms. Willa turned grief into purpose, and began collecting books that would soon turn into a sanctuary of Black knowledge, community memory, and liberation on Troost Avenue.
The space is a living archive of 20,000+ works, including first-edition Frederick Douglass volumes and books printed in 1863—the very year our ancestors seized emancipation. It is one of the last places where a Black child in Kansas City can see themselves on a shelf—and it is hanging by a thread.
In the very heartland where the modern white-supremacist book-ban crusade was born (North KC, 2021) and where segregation was first dragged into court (Brown v. Board, Topeka), this bookstore has held the line—shielding our stories and our futures from fascist educational attacks.
One Small Bookstore, One Giant Line in the Sand
Last year, with rent soaring and no paid staff to help shoulder the workload, Ms. Willa stood just one week away from surrendering her entire archive to white speculators—another casualty of Troost Avenue’s relentless gentrification.
When the Defender Mutual Aid Team learned of this crisis, we moved with urgency to protect Ms. Willa’s legacy.
Since Spring 2024, Defender Mutual Aid leaders—including Nina Kerrs and Lauren Winston—have mobilized over 40 volunteers to carry out a massive organizing and indexing effort, cataloging more than 20,000 books, one by one, in defense of Black memory.
In addition, The Defender has fully covered Ms. Willa’s rent since Summer 2024.
We refuse to let Missouri’s oldest Black bookstore—and the radical legacy it holds—be erased.
What Happens Now & What’s Next
In the coming Days, The Defender will be formally announcing a campaign to keep Ms. Willa’s life-work where it belongs: in Black hands, on Black streets, feeding Black futures, rather than locked away in the vaults of distant (mostly-white) collectors.
We will also share ways for those ready to join this historic and radical movement—to protect and expand Black knowledge, power, and sacred spaces—to take action and build with us. So stay tuned!
