We’re seeing protests here at home and across the nation. “Why do we protest in the USA?…protests indicate whether or not a government is legitimate. That’s why they matter… you’re saying to your neighbors, I don’t support this government and you shouldn’t either.”

As angry as you may feel at this moment, “in American politics what changes things is too getting those people who are not on your side to join you.” You do that by, “looking non-threatening, demonstrating and that you stand for American values you share… carry the symbols of American democracy.”

Heather Cox Richardson, author of Letters from an American, is an American historian who works as a professor of history at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught history at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.