Tia Hamilton opened Urban Reads Bookstore in Waverly to be a source of power and support for the local Black community. That same community recently rallied to offer their own support in the wake of shocking online racist harassment.

“The love that’s poured into me in this moment, I feel it,” said Hamilton, who has owned the Greenmount Avenue bookshop since 2019. “I feel all this energy, people came by just to lay hands on me and tell me I’m going to be alright.”

The 47-year-old Brooklyn, New York, native and social justice activist said she’s gotten occasional threats over the years related to State Vs. Us, the magazine she runs featuring stories of the wrongly convicted and successes of the formerly incarcerated. “I opened it for my people so they know what’s going on,” she said.

But the blatantly racist hate that started streaming in mid-February through her social media accounts — first in the direct messages on the magazine’s accounts, and then in the bookstore’s — was a gross escalation.

“It’s like they had a Klan rally just for me,” she said. “The gates of hell opened up.”

Along with hideously racist cartoons and slurs, one harasser told her that the store should be destroyed. Hamilton also reported what seemed like a suspicious incident when three masked white men on dirt bikes were riding up Greenmount past her store. “I can’t believe the audacity,” she said.

Understandably shaken, Hamilton posted screenshots of the disturbing messages on her various social media sites in hopes of dragging the hate into the light. But it only ramped up.

Hamilton made pleas for help on the store’s Instagram page, asking specifically for men to come patrol outside the building for protection.

In the current political climate, where rights and opportunities for Black people and other minorities are being blatantly rolled back, some predjudiced citizens are “becoming emboldened and thinking they can do certain things to certain institutions in the Black community, but it’s not going down that way,” said Elijah Miles, part of the grassroots organization Tendea Family.

The Tendea group provides services like self-defense, conflict resolution and protection largely in East Baltimore. They sent about five men to post up at Urban Reads last weekend to do just that, and other neighbors and community members pitched in.

“She’s a really great community partner,” said activist Adiena Britt, who distributed copies of Hamilton’s flyer across social media. “She’s not just some person up there with a business trying to rake in money from the citizens. She gives so much back.”

Mayor Brandon Scott, who referred the incident to Baltimore City Police, said he wasn’t surprised racist messages were sent. “I get those all the time, but I signed up for that. It comes with the territory, unfortunately, of doing what I do and being who I am.” But that’s not the case for Hamilton, who he said is “just a regular citizen who happens to own a business trying to educate people on the history of the world. It angered me.”

It wasn’t just about supporting a fellow Baltimorean, Scott said. “As a Black man, I always look forward to protecting Black women. We’re just not going to stand for it.”

City Councilwoman Odette Ramos has also been in touch, and the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

Ramos, who represents the area where the store resides, sent copies of the messages Hamilton received to the Office of State Attorney General’s Hate Crimes Hotline, which she encourages other people to use. She sadly doesn’t think this is the end of this sort of outlandish, plain-spoken abuse.

“I feared for her safety. We’re going to have to find a way that there are more protocols and ways that these things can be measured,” said Ramos, who believes the city needs its own hate crimes hotline. “I think this is going to grow. When something like this happens, we feel that kind of pride in our city is being tested. We’re not going to let it. The thing about Baltimore is that we care for our own, absolutely.”

The response has been gratifying for Hamilton. “You know how they say, ‘Protect Black women?’ That’s real for me. I didn’t know I had that much power, but I’m getting the celebrity treatment,” she said. “This just shows me I’m not alone.”

The support has been cross-cultural across the Waverly neighborhood. “Right here, my white friends are allies. They love me over here,” she said. “I don’t cause no problems and I don’t have any hate in my heart. There’s only happy heart energy when you walk into my store.”

Hamilton’s orders at the store have increased in the wake of the threats against her, she said. She’s continuing projects like sending books to the incarcerated and encouraging kids to raise their reading levels in Baltimore, the so-called “City That Reads,” as former Mayor Kurt Schmoke coined it. “If they’re reading, they’re less likely to be out there getting into trouble,” she said.

All of the good work she has to do means Hamilton is not going to be stopped by some foolishness. And her community has her back.

“You think you can bully me, and have me back down?” she said. “They don’t know about 90% of my fight. What’s up?”

This column has been updated to correct the type of vehicle cited in a suspicious incident Hamilton observed outside her store.