MahoganyBooks specializes in books written for, by and about people of the African Diaspora. Derrick Young and Ramunda Lark Young founded it in 2007 as an online store run out of a one-bedroom apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, and named it after their daughter; the logo is a silhouette of a girl with Afro puffs reading.
Their son Adrian Young is now a co-owner, and the family describes the business as unapologetically Black-owned, family-run and operated. The first brick-and-mortar store opened in November 2017 at the Anacostia Arts Center in Washington, DC, the first bookstore east of the Anacostia River since Pyramid Books closed in the mid-1990s, and that location closed in August 2024. The store's current retail homes are Woodmore Towne Centre in Glenarden, Maryland, National Harbor in Oxon Hill, and a shop in Concourse D at Reagan National Airport, with the online store still running alongside them.
In January 2021, Barack Obama joined a MahoganyBooks Black History Month book club event online. Shop the shelves in Glenarden or order from the website.
MahoganyBooks