Springfield Symphony Hall, 34 Court St. Springfield, MA

Like all Springfield Public Forum events, this event is free to all with no tickets required. Doors will open at 5pm.

There is on-street metered parking, free parking at MGM Springfield two blocks away, or a parking garage right next to Springfield Symphony Hall under I-91 at 1620 E. Columbus Ave, Springfield. If you park in the garage under I-91, you can receive $2 parking. Simply pay for your parking in the lobby of Symphony Hall at the event. Cash only and exact change appreciated.

In the midst of the 2019 impeachment crisis, history professor Heather Cox Richardson began writing a daily Facebook essay, providing historical context for the daily churn of news. It soon became a chart-topping Substack newsletter, Letters from an American, which now has over 2 million subscribers – dedicated to her take on both past and present.

Richardson’s talent is to condense the content of news feeds into coherent stories. She aims to pinpoint what we should pay attention to, what the precedents are, and what possible paths lie ahead. Through her rich historical knowledge, Richardson can pivot from the Founders to the abolitionists, from the New Deal to Mitch McConnell, and anywhere in between, citing that some topics have reverberated throughout history.

In Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, Richardson’s narrative explains how over time a small group of wealthy people have, in her view, made war on American ideals and created a disaffected population. She argues that taking our country back starts by remembering the elements of the nation’s true history and principles that marginalized Americans have always upheld.

Unlike many historians, Richardson is optimistic about America’s future – she firmly believes that we can preserve our democracy, in spite of the many mistakes and missteps that we have made since the founding. Richardson will explain how we got to this perilous point, what our history really tells us about ourselves, and what the future of democracy can be.

Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College. She has written about the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the American West in award-winning books whose subjects stretch from the European settlement of the North American continent to the history of the Republican Party through the Trump administration. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and The Guardian, among other outlets.

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