Dc gay bookstore
Original Lambda Rising Location
In 1971, Deacon Maccubin opened EarthWorks, a headshop that also carried LGBTQ books and magazines, at 1724 20th Street NW. EarthWorks was the first non-bar business in the capital that specifically catered to homosexual customers. By 1974, the business was doing adequately enough to found Lambda Rising as a separate bookstore business. The bookstore served as a collective hub as well. In 1975, the shop hosted the first Gay Self-acceptance Day block party in the city, which has now evolved into Capital Pride.
Other gay, leftist, and art organizations also operated on the premises, such as the publications Off Our Backs, the Gay Blade (precursor to the Washington Blade) and the Gay Switchboard; gay youth groups; DC Switchboard; Defense Committee for the Inky Panthers; the Youth International Party; the American Culture for Theatre Arts; and the Playwright's Theatre. Businesses such as Alternatives, Androgyne, Bread and Roses Harmony, and Amy Horowitz's Roadwork also operated at the site.
The bookstore moved in May 1977 to a larger location at 2012 S St NW. The bookstore moved again in 1984 to 1625 Connecticut Avenue, where it operated until its closing in 2010.
95 LGBTQ-Owned Bookstores You Can Be Proud to Support
In honor of Pride Month, we're revisiting this story that was originally published in 2020, along with an updated directory of queer-owned bookstores by express. If you can’t produce it to one of these stores in person, you can support them by shopping from their websites.
In March 2020, married couple Amy Elkavich and MerryBeth Burgess were getting ready to launch their independent, LGBTQ- and woman-focused bookstore, hello again books, in their Florida nook of Cocoa Village. The pair saw an opportunity—a need, as Elkavich told Oprah Daily, to “serve as an inclusive and safe space for those who seek one,” to make their community a more welcoming and kind space. “Visibility is everything in small towns, where books are some of the only windows to a more accepting world.”
Visibility is everything in tiny towns, where books are some of the only windows to a more accepting world.
Visibility allows people with marginalized identities to see themselves and their stories reflected in and worthy of art. As Oprah herself wrote: “When we see ourselves, our presence and existence in the world has been validated.” Additi
D.C.’s first LGBTQ bookstore since 2009 opened last June
Last week, the D.C. Council considered removing one of the most contentious ballot initiatives in D.C. government’s history — but for now, it stays.
In a 7-5 vote, an amendment to the D.C. budget — proposed by Ward 4 Council member Janeese Lewis George — ended the repeal of Initiative 82, keeping the incrementally rising tipped wage in the District.
In November 2022, D.C. residents overwhelmingly — at 73.94% — voted for the “District of Columbia Tip Credit Elimination Act of 2021” ballot measure (a.k.a. Initiative 82), which would slowly phase out the tipped wage in the District.
This execute had a goal to increase the wages of everyone working in the District, promote wage fairness, and reduce wage theft by gradually raising the tipped minimum wage over five years. From restaurant owners’ perspectives, though, the act is doing more harm than good.
In many parts of the Combined States, people who acquire a “tipped wage” are paid less than the minimum wage — with the expectation that the tips they earn on shift will make up the difference and ideally push them above the minimum. These tipped wages vary by state (or distri
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Deacon Maccubbin opened Lamda Rising bookstore in 1974 in a 300-square-foot space on 19th Street NW. The bookstore opened at a significant time for the LGBTQ+ movement, as only one year prior to the store's opening the American Psychiatric Association had stopped classifying homosexuality as a mental illness. Maccubbin stated in a 2009 article for the American Booksellers Association: “We reflection if we could demonstrate that there was a demand for our literature, that bookstores could be profitable selling it, we could encourage the writing and publishing of GLBT books, and sooner or later other bookstores would put those books on their own shelves." In 1977, James Bennett connected Maccubbin as a co-owner.
Lamda Rising, a reference to "lambda," a Greek letter and gay liberation symbol, relocated to S Lane NW before moving to its final location at 1625 Connecticut Avenue NW in 1984. It eventually became the nation's largest gay and lesbian bookstore, selling "anything by, for, or about gays and lesbians," as stated to the Washington Post in 1984. The bookstore closed in late 2009.
This is a stop on the DC's LGBTQ+ HistoryTour.
For more information about DC's LGBTQ History,
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