When most Americans think of college, they conjure pre-pandemic images of young adults fresh out of high school strolling across bucolic residential campuses and enjoying student life in dorms. After all, a college education is often touted as a shining pathway to success. While education is proven to be transformative, securing a degree and navigating the institutions that grant them can be fraught for many students, especially first-generation, minority, and low-income students.

The 2020 presidential election is rapidly approaching, and it holds the potential for a monumental reckoning of American democracy. Protests persist across the country in an effort to defund the police and dismantle systemic racism, the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging in the U.S. longer than in any other affluent nation, the census timeline has been cut short and seeds of doubt have been planted by President Trump about the integrity of voting by mail.

With ongoing nationwide protests against police violence, race in the United States has been at the center of many conversations in recent weeks—books on racial injustice like The New Jim Crow are topping bestseller lists, and social media feeds are full of outrage over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans.

Throughout its history The New Press has published hundreds of books that challenge racism and shine a spotlight on systemic injustice, books that correct a whitewashed historical narrative and offer a vision for a more equal future.

Throughout the week, we’re celebrating the life and legacy of author Studs Terkel leading up to his birthday on Saturday. Today, we have a collection of quotes pulled from his books (you can find suggestions on which ones to read here) to serve as some food for thought in our present moment.

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Something to think about while reflecting on the past:

The coronavirus pandemic has underscored the inequities of capitalist society. It is more important than ever to think, discuss, and engage with ideas that could transform the institutions that govern our lives. The New Press has joined our fellow progressive publishers from around the world, together with LITERAL—a radical festival of books and ideas—to present #RadicalMay.

May 1 is International Workers' Day (also known as May Day), a day to honor laborers, labor movements, and the fight for workers’ rights. We’re celebrating by sharing a selection of books that present portraits of the American worker at different points in time, that tell the history of the labor movement in the US, and catch us up on contemporary fights to champion the rights of workers.

Need to distance yourself from the current situation?  We’d like to recommend six wonderful works that will transport you far, far away.

No need to keep your distance from great ideas and great books.

Suncatcher: A Novel
By Romesh Gunesekera
(Ceylon/Sri Lanka)