With over a dozen patrons stopping by within its first official hour of business, Bread and Roses Press celebrated a successful grand opening on Monday, January 5th in their new space at the Ecumenical Campus Ministries (ECM), a local community justice center.
In an open press release from Bread and Roses, they share that core to their mission “is the idea that reading and art are necessary forms of resistance.” They describe themselves as an “author-first press with punk values and anarchist ethics, publishing work that confronts a brutal world with creativity and defiance” focused on providing access to “books that act as lanterns in the storm… curated to foster joy and hope, showcase beauty, and encourage resilience while helping to build a safer, kinder, more livable world.”
“I am excited about the shop opening,” shared Nash Rosario, a member of the ECM Board of Directors. “People are already really excited about it”
Bread and Roses Press is operated jointly by Adam Gnade, an anarchist author and talking-song musician, and Jesse Duke, Director of the ECM and an acclaimed radical publisher formerly with Microcosm Press. Bread and Roses has offices in both Lawrence, KS and in Bristol, UK. They appear regularly at radical and anarchist book fairs internationally, including at those in Atlanta, Halifax, and Bristol.
The ECM stocks a great number and variety of items, which, as of their grand opening, includes The Practical Guide to Building a Better World by Mike Trapp, a leftist infighting veteran baseball cap, the “Skeletor’s Guide to Self-quarrentine” zine (with author credits to Skeletor), a cassette tape of Honey Slides by Adam Gnade and Youthmovies, a sticker reminding you how to pronounce Adam’s last name (“GUH-NAH-DEE”), and a bag of freeze-dried MRE-inspired lemon lentil soup from Bramble Rose Farm. I purchased that last item, which Duke suggested tasted like “I-don’t-want-to-make-dinner-tonight.”
The grand opening comes at a time Bread and Roses describes as “nearly a year of intensifying political repression during the second Trump administration.”
“Given everything going on in this country, this is an absurd project to take on right now,” said Duke. “It isn’t going to make money, and it might get us into trouble. This shop will fail. But even if a moment is fleeting, it can still be special, and just because a battle is unwinnable doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting. This bookshop is an exercise in holding space for literature, art, beauty, and truth.”
The new location “was a chaotic mess” hours before the grand opening, “but that’s how the ECM is,” said Rosario. “The community is really receptive to chaotic things, and I think they’ll respond really well to the book shop.”
Bread and Roses was formerly located in the smaller adjacent office at the ECM but began moving into their newer, larger space in August. They had a soft launch of their new space December 7th of last year.
The suite Bread and Roses is now housed in, which was formerly a chapel and adjoined office, had been left unused for several years by the ECM. Since moving, however, Bread and Roses has transformed the space into something for the community, having already used it for events like Dr. Claire Marshall’s Last Lecture.
The ECM is a community justice center located just off KU’s campus at the corner of Oread Avenue and 12th Street. It describes itself as “a welcoming space for personal growth, spiritual reflection, interfaith dialogue, and community activism, fostering a sense of belonging for students and community members alike.”
The organization was established in 1905 and has been in their current building for over 50 years. The ECM has been a hub of Black Power organizing in the 1970s, anti-nuclear weapons organizing in the 1990s, and Palestinian solidarity activism in recent years.
“The ECM is a cool building,” said Rosario. “People really like looking around.”
The ECM’s programming includes Tai Chi and Chai Tea, kickboxing classes, punk shows, queer kink nights, and its weekly Veggie Lunch, among a great many other things. It is also home to the Koinonia Student Housing Cooperative, which underwent a significant renovation during my time working for the ECM this summer, as well as Lawrence Community Cycles, a local bike collective.
Community spaces like the ECM and groups like Bread and Roses Press are among both the most essential and most vulnerable institutions in our community, the former relying on donations and grants and the latter on a high volume of sales of radical publications and paraphernalia. Projects which challenge capitalism are inevitably going to suffer under it, yet they persist because of how invaluable to those at KU, in Lawrence, in the KC metro area, and beyond. There is strength in community and resistance.
Bread and Roses Press is open from 12 to 7 Tuesday through Sunday in the first suite to the right of the main entrance at the ECM.
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