LOCAL
Ismael Lele, The Oklahoma Eagle
Fulton Street Books & Coffee moved to the Historic Greenwood District in 2023. Photo: Ismael Lele/The Oklahoma Eagle
Fulton Street Books & Coffee announced Thursday it will close its Tulsa location five years after opening to seek new opportunities outside the city.
Store owner Onikah Asamoa-Caesar said she’s shutting down the city’s only Black-owned bookstore due to the current state of Oklahoma politics and a lack of support for businesses catered to helping marginalized communities.
“We are a business that is very vocal about our Blackness, very vocal about our marginalization and who speaks up very publicly about social issues,” Asamoa-Caesar said.
Fulton’s creation came during a contentious time in Tulsa, following the 2020 murder of George Floyd and preparation for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre’s centennial. Its roots have always lied in being politically conscious, she said.
“In 2020, that was a great social place to be publicly,” she told The Eagle. “In 2025, we are seeing the backlash of that. And so this is not unique to Fulton Street, but I do think anyone that is socially progressive right now is struggling in a lot of ways.”
Since President Trump took office in January, his administration has targeted diversity, equity and inclusion by slicing federal funding for DEI initiatives and going after mentions of slavery in museums and national parks.
Black-owned businesses, Asamoa-Caesar said, are both underfunded and under-supported, but her concerns extend to the current state of Oklahoma education.
She specifically took issue with Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters and his decision to investigate schools who did not hold a moment of silence for controversial conservative activist Charlie Kirk after he was shot and killed at an event in Utah on Sept. 10. She also found Gov. Kevin Stitt’s decision to forcibly remove homeless encampments in the city to be troubling.
Ray’Chel Wilson, the Tulsa-based CEO of Raise the Bar Investments, is one of several authors whose books are sold at Fulton. She also hosts a crash course series on building wealth at the coffee shop and bookstore.
“When I think about places like Fulton, when I think about bookshops or cafes or even libraries, I think about them as places to build community,” Wilson said. “We’re now losing a place for our community.”
Fulton originally opened in the Heights north of downtown before moving to the Historic Greenwood District in 2023. That same year, it expanded by opening a Fulton Street kiosk in the Tulsa International Airport.
Thursday’s announcement was bittersweet as it also marked the celebration of its fifth anniversary. Dozens of locals gathered inside the shop at 21 N. Greenwood Ave. to drink coffee, buy books and play games.
Asamoa-Caesar did not specify where Fulton will relocate to or when its last day would be, but indicated that she will likely reopen outside of Oklahoma. She moved to Tulsa in 2013 as a Teach for America corps member and worked for the George Kaiser Family Foundation before opening the shop.
“I think it’s a huge loss for [the] community,” she said of Fulton’s closure. “When you lose anchor spaces like this, [where] we can be sustainable, I think that’s a reflection of a lot of things.
As for a future return, Asamoa-Casear left the door open: “It may not be a goodbye forever. It may be a goodbye for now.”
