This Forum will run from 7:30 until approximately 9:10 with no intermission.

“History doesn’t repeat itself; but it sure rhymes.”

As we approach America’s 250th anniversary and a pivotal election season, we are compelled to look at the events of today through the lens of history. What does history teach us?  What do the events, heroes, villains, triumphs, and tragedies of yesterday mean for us today and tomorrow? What does it mean to be an American? What are the stories we tell about ourselves and our country – and why do they matter?

These questions and more will be explored by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and historian Heather Cox Richardson in the only-of-its-kind public conversation, moderated by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Capehart.

Nikole Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of The 1619 Project—the #1 New York Times bestselling book and 2024 Emmy Award-winning Hulu docuseries—as well as the co-author of the 1619 Project children’s book, Born on the Water.  A MacArthur Genius and one of TIME‘s most influential people in the world, this New York Times Magazine staff writer has spent her career proving that when we understand the history of Black America, we understand the history and the future of all America—which makes us better equipped to fight for racial justice and democracy today. She has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the “Genius Grant,” a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and the National Magazine Award three times.

Renowned political historian and author Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of history at Boston College. She publishes the wildly popular daily newsletter “Letter from an American,” which chronicles current events and trends in the context of American history, which reaches over a million readers around the world. She has written about the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age and the American West. She is the author, most recently, of the best-selling Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.