MahoganyBooks Owners/Founders (L-R: Derrick A. Young, Mahogany Young, & Ramunda Lark Young) photo: Kea Taylor, Imagine Photography
Our Vision
Unapologetically Black-owned, family-run and operated. MahoganyBooks is a local independent bookstore that believes in social entreprenuership. We take a leadership role in the African American community by promoting reading, writing, and cultural awareness as tools to improve self-esteem, self-love and ultimately our communities to enrich the lives of motivated individuals.
Our Story
At its roots, MahoganyBooks was founded in 2007 to meet the literary needs of readers nationwide in search of books written for, by, or about people of the African Diaspora. For the first ten years, they were solely online and engaged authors, bookclubs, conferences and publishers to ensure Black Books were accessible to anyone eager to read about Black culture. In 2017, they opened the doors to their very first physical location in Washington, DC and in July 2021, in the midst of a pandemic, they opened their National Harbor location in Prince George's County, MD.
Founded by an enterprising husband and wife duo, the award-winning MahoganyBooks is the result of Derrick and Ramunda's love for culture, community and connection and their desire to see books empower others as it had empowered them. With over 20 years of combined retail book industry experience, the Young's witnessed a variety of market highs and lows which armed them with insight needed to develop a bookstore model capitalizing on technology while staying true to independent community bookstore roots that define core values of the owners.
Since its inception, MahoganyBooks has committed to connecting readers to writers and grown from being exclusively online to hosting more than 600 book events throughout the DC/Maryland/Virginia metro area and online via their popular MahoganyBooks Front Row series. They have become the go-to bookseller to feature A-List luminaries, new voices and local authors. MahoganyBooks proudly boasts one of the deepest inventory of black books online. In 2019, the company was named one of the Top 100 Minority Business Enterprises in the DC Capital Region and made the Forbes Next 1000 list December 2021. Their commitment to community is amplified by their donation of over 1000 books to youth, numerous story times, financial workshops, author talks, seminars and a host of other events created to enrich the lives of residents and beyond. MahoganyBooks has been featured nationally on the Steve Harvey Television Show, Black Enterprise, Vanity Fair Magazine, Essence Magazine Forbes, Oprah Magazine, TIME Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NBC, ABC and other outlets featuring their commitment to Black books.
However Derrick & Ramunda are most excited about the impact their family business has had not only, on local children through their give-back program, Books for the Block, but also the zeal for reading and entrepreneurship their child Adrian has developed through their exposure to the family enterprise.
What They're Saying About Us on the 'Net
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Now Two Physical Locations: Washington, DC & National Harbor
Online Store since 2007
- Anacostia Location in DC - 1231 Good Hope Rd., SE Washington DC 20020 (located inside the Anacostia Arts Center) Contact us at (202) 844-2062.
- National Harbor Location: 121 American Way, Oxon Hill, MD 20745 (next to the Oyster Bar on the corner). Phone: (240) 724-8003
- Online Store: 1(844) 279-6239 Mon-Friday 12-5pm EST. Closed holidays
AUTHORS: please visit our Author Relations page under Customer Service for book and event submissions.
Anacostia map below