As 2020 draws to a close many of us are weary and frightened, but hopeful. While we’ve suffered under the pandemic and the police, we’ve also come together to build networks of aid, care, and solidarity. Record numbers of people took to the streets to protest the murders of Black people, braving arrest, beatings, sound cannons, and tear gas; 2020 opened a conversation about racism, equality, and justice that is now too loud to be ignored.

2020 MacArthur Fellow Catherine Coleman Flowers's work fighting for basic sanitation addresses some of the most pressing issues of our time—public health, environmental, economic, and racial justice. It began in in her home community of Lowndes County, Alabama, a county that has a long, turbulent, and bloody history of racial injustice, and has expanded to communities across the United States.

We might not be able meet in the real world, but online events have been able to bring more of us together and have provided an opportunity for far-flung conversations. Attending an event with your favorite author is no longer constrained by time or location. Readers can join live conversations halfway across the world or watch recordings after they’ve had a chance to finish reading a book.

Literacy Partners, an adult education non-profit based in New York City with programs across the country, is hosting a series of online events focusing on racial and social justice. On October 23rd at 7:00 pm ET, Literary Partners will host “Champions of Literacy,” an event celebrating the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project. This ongoing project has worked to reframe U.S.