The corner of Puritan Ave. and Lesure St. on Detroit's west side now has a bookstore.
The Howard Family Bookstore opened last month. On April 25, about 400 people came to the grand opening. Students from John R. King Middle School sang "Lift Every Voice and Sing." Malik Yakini, the activist and educator, gave a speech. The ribbon cutting moved more than 200 books. JerJuan Howard, 28, had spent a year and a half building the place from a vacant building using his own savings. He grew up seven blocks away, on Cheyenne St.
Howard bought the property in June 2024 and started construction around August 2024. The work wrapped in November or December 2025. He converted an abandoned storefront into a functioning bookstore: a custom-built shelf running the length of the store, African American artwork on the walls, a coffee bar, a 3D printer for youth programming, an upstairs loft for events, and a meeting space in the rear with a projector and seating. The whole room is designed to be used for more than selling books.
"Everyone who works here is pretty much family," Howard said. He is also the founding president of the Puritan Avenue Business Association, which means his investment in the block extends beyond the property line. He canvassed the neighborhood before opening to ask what books people wanted and what programming they were looking for. That work shifted the ownership of the place before it even opened.
"By engaging them, they don't feel like it's just 'JerJuan's bookstore,'" Howard said. "Now, they say, 'our neighborhood has a bookstore. It's our bookstore.'"
The Howard Family Bookstore reaches toward a Detroit tradition that ran through the 1980s and 1990s. Shops like Truth Bookstore, Shrine of the Black Madonna, Black Star Bookstore, and Apple Book Center operated as community infrastructure in those years, hosting author readings, Black history lectures, and resources for independent writers. Howard is building toward that model deliberately. The upstairs loft and rear meeting room are designed for documentaries, financial literacy workshops, and whatever the neighborhood asks for. The 3D printer is there for youth who want to make things.
Howard read "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave" at 17, and he has been running civic projects since. He was Black Student Union president at Western Michigan University and wrote "A Message to Black College Students" before graduating in 2021. A year later he started the Umoja Debate League, a teenage debate team built around conflict resolution and public speaking. Model D Media reported this week on the bookstore and the arc that led here.
"I want youth to have access to that process to be able to replicate it," Howard said. "And not even to replicate it, but to take it even further."
The Howard Family Bookstore is at the corner of Puritan Ave. and Lesure St., Detroit's west side.
