Marcus Books to reopen in San Francisco

Marcus Books’ Fillmore Street store closed in 2014. Marcus Books’ Fillmore Street store closed in 2014. Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle 2013 Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle 2013 Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Marcus Books to reopen in San Francisco 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Marcus Books, the oldest African American-themed bookstore in the country, is rising again.

Evicted from its longtime home in San Francisco’s Fillmore district in 2014, the store plans to reopen in the neighborhood next spring.

The new space, however, will be much smaller. Located in the lobby of the African American Art and Culture Complex, at 762 Fulton St., the shop will be large enough for just a few hundred titles, said Karen Johnson, Marcus Books’ co-owner.

“We had a tugboat, and now we have a rowboat,” Johnson said by phone. “We’ll be focusing on quality rather than quantity.”

Marcus Books’ old space, in a Queen Anne Victorian at 1712 Fillmore St., held roughly 5,000 titles. Opened in 1981, the store was designated as a historic landmark by the Board of Supervisors before being evicted after missing rent payments.

Named in honor of black nationalist Marcus Garvey, the original Marcus Books dates to 1960. Malcolm X frequented the shop, and visiting authors over the years included Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Terry McMillan, Toni Morrison and Oprah Winfrey.

Marcus Books also has an Oakland store, at 3900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, that was established in 1976.

Although Marcus Books will sell fewer titles in its new space, Johnson said the Fillmore Street location could not accommodate large author events. At the African American Art and Culture Complex, the store will be able to use the complex’s theater.

“That’s the good part,” Johnson said. “Now it’s a little part of a larger unifying umbrella.”

The African American Art and Culture Complex, a nonprofit organization, is also home to a library and art gallery and several other spaces. Its resident art organizations include the AfroSolo Theatre Company, the African American Shakespeare Company and the San Francisco Juneteenth Festival.

Johnson said she has made peace with being evicted.

“We got forced to move, and in retrospect I’m not mad about that,” she said. “I’ve been able to get some distance and see it in the larger scheme of things.”

While acknowledging that “there’s not much black culture left in San Francisco,” Johnson said displacement is affecting not only African Americans in the city.

“Here’s the thing,” she said. “It’s happening to the whole world, so we can disassociate it from race.”

Details of Marcus Books’ new design will be unveiled at an event at the center on Aug. 16, from 6 to 9 p.m.

John McMurtrie is The Chronicle’s book editor. E-mail: jmcmurtrie@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @McMurtrieSF