Author: Heather Cox Richardson

Russia’s war on Ukraine has given us a penetrating snapshot of democracy and autocracy. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of Congress virtually on March 16. His speech was live streamed to the American people. Looking tired, he wore a green military tee shirt and was unshaven, sitting next to a large Ukrainian flag, a visual representation of his besieged country. Speaking from Kyiv, Zelensky emphasized that he and Ukrainians were fighting to be free, to preserve their democracy, and he reminded Americans of our own declared principles. “Russia has attacked not just us, not just our...

It was a beautiful sunny day on March 6 in Selma, Alabama, where thousands of people, including Vice President Kamala Harris and five other senior White House officials, met to honor the 57th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when law enforcement officers tried to beat into silence those Black Americans marching for their right to have a say in the government under which they lived. The story of March 7 in Selma is the story of Americans determined to bring to life the principle articulated in the Declaration of Independence that a government’s claim to authority comes from the consent...

Russia’s war on Ukraine continues. If the broader patterns of war apply, Russian president Vladimir Putin is making the war as senselessly brutal as possible, likely hoping to force Ukraine to give in quickly before global sanctions completely crush Russia and the return of warm weather eases Europe’s need for Russian oil and gas. Russian shelling has created a humanitarian crisis in urban areas. A brief ceasefire designed to let residents of Mariupol and Volnovakha escape the cities through “humanitarian corridors” broke down as Russian troops resumed firing, forcing the people back to shelter. On March 6, Ukraine president...

In Ukraine, Russian troops escalated their bombing of cities, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Mariupol, in what Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky called a campaign of terror to break the will of the Ukrainians. On March 1 (in U.S. time), airborne troops assaulted Kharviv, which is a city of about 1.5 million, and a forty-mile-long convoy of tanks and trucks is within 17 miles of Kyiv, although a shortage of gas means they will move very slowly. About 660,000 refugees have fled the country. But the war is not going well for Putin, either, as international sanctions are devastating the...

Southern novelist William Faulkner’s famous line saying “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” is usually interpreted as a reflection on how the evils of our history continue to shape the present. But Faulkner also argued, equally accurately, that the past is “not even past” because what happens in the present changes the way we remember the past. Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the defiant and heroic response of the people of Ukraine to that new invasion are changing the way we remember the past. Less than a week ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin launched an assault...