A popular Denver bookstore that has fallen on hard financial times due to the coronavirus pandemic has announced that it is selling the business, and will become the country’s largest Black-owned independent bookstore in the acquisition.

The Tattered Cover owners Len Vlahos and Kristen Gilligan released a press release Wednesday revealing the sale of the bookstore chain to Bended Page LLC, a business collaboration between David Back and Kwame Spearman, the latter of which will serve as the bookstore’s CEO, according to The Denver Post.

“We want to preserve what we all love about The Tattered Cover and give it the necessary capital to beat COVID,” he said.

A message was posted to the store's website earlier this year that warned "the impact of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic made it clear that Tattered Cover was going to need not only new management," but a new breath of financial life, NPR reports.

“When COVID hit in March and we shut everything down, it was very clear to us this was going to be financially devastating to the business,” Vlahos said. “And we were undercapitalized to begin with, so we started to look for a cash infusion. Serendipitously, David reached out … Since then they’ve created their own self-guided course in bookselling by educating themselves about the industry.”

Spearman said that his involvement with the Tattered Cover is more than an investment, he views it as a community asset that has brought many locals joy. The type of business Spearman, a Black man, said he felt necessary to protect.

"The notion of buying a bookstore in the middle of pandemic was just about the craziest thing I had ever heard," he said. "Colorado needs Tattered Cover, and Tattered Cover needs Colorado."

Colorado’s beloved @TatteredCover bookstores are changing ownership, becoming the largest Black-owned bookseller in the nation.

Shoutout to CEO Kwame Spearman graduate of East High School.

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— Albus Brooks (@AlbusBrooks) December 9, 2020

Spearman’s partner Back told Denver Post that his ties to the bookstore also run deep. In his first job, Back worked as a cashier at the Cherry Creek, Colo., location and said he'd day dream about owning the Tattered Cover. Back said he has known Spearman since high school, where they competed in debate contests at rival schools and became friends.

Earlier this year, the previous owners faced backlash for releasing a statement vowing that the store would maintain a neutral stance on free speech, despite the mounting Black Lives Matter protests.

"As a white-owned business, with a predominantly white staff, we feel this is a time for us to take a step back, to allow others to command more and greater attention," the statment began. "Our value to the community is to provide a place where access to ideas, and the free exchange of ideas, can happen in an uninhibited way. It's not for us to determine which ideas in the pages on our shelves are valid and which are not. We leave that to you, our readers."

Following public criticism, Vlahos and Gillian wrote an apology. But several local businesses ended their partnerships with the Tattered Cover and scores of local residents said they would no longer shop at the establishment.

“I’ve been mostly focused on moving forward with the Tattered Cover,” Spearman said in response to the incident. “If you look at what the movement was hoping to accomplish, it’s access to things like this. While we still have a lot of work to do, it’s a step in the right direction. I firmly believe in Black Lives Matter, and as CEO, I’m going to make sure The Tattered Cover always finds itself on the right side of history.”

The former management team has agreed to help with the transition until summer 2021, according to Denver Post, and the new leadership group will be assisted by an advisory board that includes Oren Teicher, a former CEO of the American Booksellers Association.

In the first three months of the new year, the bookstore's flagship location in Lower Downtown, which has been there since 1994, is scheduled to move to across the street from Coors Field as Rockies owner Dick Monfort has joined in the endeavor as both an investor and landlord, per the Denver Post.

Kwame-Spearman

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