Marcy Kaptur

History will judge our generation for what we did or did not do for Ukraine at this moment in history.

Marcy Kaptur

Marcia Carolyn Kaptur is an American politician, the first ethnic Ukrainian woman in the U.S. Congress, a representative of the Democratic Party and the state of Ohio, and the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus co-chair. She is the longest-serving congresswoman in Congress (since 1983). Marcy Kaptur is the author of the book “Women of Congress: A Twentieth-century Odyssey” (Washington, DC: Women of Congress: A Twentieth-century Odyssey, 1996).

Marcia Carolyn Kaptur was born on June 17, 1946, in Toledo, Ohio, USA. She was the first in her family to get higher education: at St. Ursula’s Academy in Toledo, the Universities of Wisconsin-Madison (B.A., 1968) and Michigan (MA, 1974), and did doctoral studies in urban planning development finance at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She worked in her field of study as director of the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs (1975-1977).

Her life changed after she visited Ukraine in 1973 and 1975. Marcy Kaptur searched for relatives in Lviv and Khmelnytsky regions with her mother and learned about the Holodomor and the horrors of Stalin’s repressions. 

According to Marcy Kaptur, these travels inspired her to become a politician to help Ukrainians. She began her political career as a domestic policy advisor in the administration of President Jimmy Carter. And in 1983, she was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from one of the Ohio districts, which she still represents.

Supporting Ukraine has been one of Marcy Kaptur’s main priorities during her 40 years in Congress. Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, she has been one of the biggest advocates of Ukraine among American politicians. As a co-chair of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, she lobbies for effective assistance to Ukraine (she is the author of the Ukraine Freedom Support Act, approved in late 2014), as well as for the dissemination of information about current and past crimes of Russians in Ukraine, including the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-1933 (in 2017, she co-authored a draft resolution of the House of Representatives to recognize the Holodomor as genocide of Ukrainian people). 

Marcy Kaptur is constantly and consistently fighting for increased support for Ukraine in building a prosperous, democratic society and, as an active public figure, she provides practical assistance herself: in 1997, she created The Anastasia Fund to provide financial support to impoverished Ukrainians and in 2018, she launched the Seeds of Hope project to support private agricultural businesses of Ukrainian women and promote them on the international market.

Marcy Kaptur believes that Ukraine will pass all the challenges and become a truly independent, strong, and thriving country. “You can’t defeat people who refuse to kneel,” she said.