Alfred and Bernice Ligon, owners of the Aquarian Book Shop, Los Angeles, CA. Image from UCLA Library & Special Collections.

Alfred and Bernice Ligon were the proprietors and owners of the Aquarian Bookshop and Aquarian Spiritual Center in Los Angeles, CA, the longest continuously owned black bookstore in the U.S.

In 1982, Ranford B. Hopkins interviewed Dr. Alfred Ligon in his office above the Aquarian Bookshop, as part of the Oral History Program at the University of California at Los Angeles. The interview is split into five parts, and in Tape II, Side One, Ligon discusses the founding of his bookshop in 1941.

Hopkins
Dr. Ligon, can you trace for me, then, your life from the time you arrived in Los Angeles, that is, your activities from 1936 to about 1962?

Ligon
Well, I think [one of] the things that interested me was, of course, when in 1940 I started my bookshop, the Aquarian Library and Bookshop. I started that, and just more or less working on the road and enjoying life in general [are] basically the things in which I would define in terms of my life. My family, my mother, and my wife, and my sister were all here, and we enjoyed being here in Los Angeles because I enjoyed the weather, I enjoyed the congeniality of those who we were friends with. My life has just been an average life, on the periphery of what was happening.

Hopkins
You started your bookstore in 1940 or 1941?

Ligon
I think it was '41.

Hopkins
How did you go about starting a bookstore?

Ligon
How did I go about it? Well, we, my sister and I, purchased a place at 802 East Jefferson. And there was an upstairs and downstairs, and downstairs we had store space. I thought it would be a very nice idea to have a bookshop merely because of my interest in the metaphysical and occult background that I was interested in. I found a book referred to as The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ [Levi Dowling], defining the coming of the Aquarian age. I became quite interested in its philosophical approach, and then I began to sell that book. In conjunction with, at that time, what we called the Aquarian Library and Bookshop, we began to get other books that were being published at that time, especially those that [were] related along the subject matter of [the] metaphysical and also a few of the black books. So that was how I got started in the book business.

In 1942, Dr. Ligon met Bernice Goodwin. The two found that they had a mutual interest in esoteric studies, and Dr. Ligon asked her to sell books in his store. The two were married in 1948, and together they operated the Aquarian Bookshop, where they collected books, journals, media, art and related materials from more than half a century representing history, culture, philosophy and the life of African Americans and African Diaspora in Los Angeles.

Various flyers from the Aquarian Spritual Center. Images from Locus Soulus Rare Books.

The couple also ran the Aquarian Spiritual Center, which Ligon described as a place that:

[...] offers to those interested the gnostic studies. The gnostic studies more or less define— We use the word black gnostic studies or black gnosticism only defining that the word black as it is used in the metaphysical sense, only mean[ing] the hidden knowledge (gnostic meaning knowledge) which is all around us, but we are not aware of it. So a person becomes aware of that hidden knowledge. And that's what we define, trying to make a person aware of the hidden knowledge that's found in a number of books as we have outlined them and also stated that one actually also begins to know himself.

The Aquarian Bookshop was unfortunately a casualty of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and was burned to the ground with 7,000 books inside. A group of independent bookstores collectively organized to raise money to rebuild the bookshop, and also held a benefit featuring Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. Together, they collected $70,000 to reopen the store, which was short lived as the store closed in 1994 after Bernice was diagnosed with liver cancer.

Librarian Mayme Clayton (center-right) poses with Alfred and Bernice Ligon (left), Community Award recipients and owners of the Aquarian Bookshop, and County Librarian Sandra Reuben (right) at the fourteenth annual African American Living Legends Series program. Image from the County of Los Angeles Public Library.

Bernice Ligon passed away in 2000, and Alfred Ligon passed away two years later in 2002. The collection they amassed over the years now lives in the archives at Cal State Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), which was donated to the university by Members of the Aquarian Spiritual Center and Aquarian Gospel Temple in 2015.

To learn more about Alfred and Bernice, read the full transcript of Dr. Ligon’s oral history interview and view the full finding aid for their collection at CSUDH.

Grace Danico is an archivist for a private philanthropic collection, Press and Publications Chair for the Los Angeles Archivists Collective, and freelance creative specializing in illustration and design.