Rare Book Shop Near Me in Liberty City: Roots Bookstore & Market

Roots Bookstore & Market sits at 6610 NW 15th Avenue in Liberty City and opens Tuesday to Saturday from 8 am to 6 pm. For anyone typing rare book shop near me in Miami, it is not a dealer with locked cases and auction prices. It is something harder to find: a neighborhood shop whose wooden shelves are filled largely with secondhand books from one Chicago book merchant's private collection, where a worn classic or an old first printing can turn up between new local titles.

Most of the stock has a single source. Miami New Times reported in August 2025 that about 70 percent of the books came from the collection of co-owner Phillip Agnew's father, who worked as a book merchant in Chicago, with the rest donated by the community. The paper described floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves loaded with secondhand Toni Morrison and Angela Davis next to Haruki Murakami, Khalil Gibran and Ernest Hemingway, plus volumes on sports, fashion, history and local life.

Shelf Awareness reported that Roots welcomed its first customers on Juneteenth 2025, after a GoFundMe campaign raised more than $13,000. The owners are Isaiah Thomas, Phillip Agnew and Sherina Jones, longtime organizers and educators. Thomas, born and raised in Miami-Dade, works as an assistant principal at Paul L. Dunbar K-8 Center in Overtown, according to New Times. The store's Give Miami Day profile says the project carries the legacy of Danny Agnew, the founder of the Roots Collective, who has since passed away.

The shop's own history page explains why it ended up on this block. The collective moved through four homes, from the Citadel to Black House, Black House 2.0 and finally NW 15th Avenue. It chose to leave busier 7th Avenue, trading foot traffic for a street the owners describe as once one of Black Miami's main business centers. The same page reminds readers that Black men signed the City of Miami's incorporation documents, a story the shelves are meant to carry.

There is no rare-book catalogue here, so the finds come from patient browsing. One customer review on the store's website describes a library-style section where readers can borrow a book and bring it back, and spotting a first edition of Toni Morrison's Tar Baby in that pile. Treat those borrowing shelves as a lending collection rather than stock for sale, and ask at the counter which used titles are priced to buy before you set a copy aside.

The categories on the store's website map well onto the floor: Black literature, feminist and womanist thought, global voices, poetry, essays and plays, history, spirituality and a children's and young adult section. The owners told Shelf Awareness that they stress Black, banned and local authors. Their story page puts the banned-book question plainly, saying they set out to carry honest books and that in Florida those turn out to be the same titles that get banned.

Alongside the used stock, Roots runs a local-author shelf that changes each week. The homepage recently featured a children's book, Ivie's Journey Home: A Tale of Love, Courage, and Trust, at $18.99, and it spotlights Miami writers such as Brandon Vega Jefferson and Marie Pierre. If a title is not on the shelf, the shop takes orders for any book through its website, so a special order can come to the store instead of a chain.

Check the sidewalk before you walk in. The programs page says 20 to 30 free books go out in front of the shop every week and that every one gets taken. The program has run since the collective's first Juneteenth event on June 19, 2024, and the community page counts more than 1,200 books given away. The footer also says book donations are accepted, so bring a bag of your own read copies to add to the stack.

Roots calls itself a bookstore and market, and the market side runs on partners. The homepage says The Matcha Edit now serves inside Tuesday through Saturday, 8 am to 4 pm, so you can order ahead or just walk up. On Pull Up Saturdays, from noon to 4 pm, Haitian barbecue plates are $15. Saturday around lunch is the fullest window for a visit, with books, a drink and a plate all on one stop.

The events page shows a busy fall. It lists a book signing for The Black Madonna on October 1, a book talk on the Ferry Tales novel tour on October 15, a Messy Conversations live panel on October 18, and adult voter-education sessions on Saturdays. The second Roots Read-A-Thon falls on Saturday, October 31. Events marked RSVP on the page take sign-ups there, and signing up for the shop's emails gets 10 percent off your next order.

The store's anniversary has turned into a block party. Miami-Dade County's District 3 office announced that the 2026 Roots Book Fair ran on Friday, June 19, from 11 am to 6 pm, closing NW 15th Avenue between NW 66th and NW 67th streets. The program included local author readings, spoken word, vendors, a spades and dominoes tournament and a tribute to Miami Bass for Black Music Month. Admission was free and open to all ages.

Across the avenue is Liberty Square, which Living New Deal records as opening to its first tenants on February 6, 1937, and which is widely cited as one of the earliest public housing projects for Black families in the South. For a second stop, drive or ride about a mile southwest to the Marshall L. Davis, Sr. African Heritage Cultural Arts Center at 6161 NW 22nd Avenue, renamed in his honor in 2024.

Roots rewards readers who like digging through used shelves, people building a library of Black history and literature, and anyone who wants their book money to stay in Liberty City. It will disappoint collectors who expect graded first editions, signed rarities in glass cases or a searchable antiquarian inventory. Come for the surprise copy and the conversation at the counter; one website review credits co-owner Phil Agnew as welcoming and knowledgeable about the stock.

Roots Bookstore & Market is at 6610 NW 15th Avenue, Miami, FL 33147, between NW 66th and NW 67th streets in Liberty City. Hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 8 am to 6 pm; it is closed Sunday and Monday. Matcha runs 8 am to 4 pm on open days, and barbecue plates are served on Saturdays from noon to 4 pm. Bring a bag of donations if you have them, and ask in the Karpo APP for nearby Miami bookstores.