A quarter century after the Sept. 11 attacks, youth, culture and religion expert Dr. Alex McFarland is urging Americans to keep the day’s human cost from fading into history.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that 9/11 permanently changed the fabric of this nation,” McFarland said in a Sept. 8 statement.
“I stood in the rubble of the Twin Towers just two days after the horrific attack. The scene still haunts me to this day — people wandering the streets looking for their loved ones, first responders exhausted and heartbroken by the senseless violence,” he continued.
On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 terrorists associated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airplanes. They crashed two into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and a fourth into a Pennsylvania field after passengers and crew members fought back, killing 2,977 people across the three attack sites.
McFarland’s comments followed a YouGov survey of 1,098 US adult citizens conducted Aug. 20-23. Overall, 8% said Americans focus too much on the memory of 9/11, 27% said too little and 46% said about the right amount; among Democrats, 13% answered “too much,” compared with 6% of independents and 5% of Republicans.
“The idea that we as a nation ‘overemphasize’ this tragedy is not only absurd, but anti-American,” McFarland said.
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The survey also found that 51% of Americans support making Sept. 11 a national holiday honoring those killed. Congress designated Sept. 11 as Patriot Day in 2001, an observance that calls for flags at half-staff and a national moment of silence, but it is not a federal holiday.
The generational gap may carry the bigger long-term consequence. Fifty-four percent of respondents said Americans born after 2001 generally do not understand the attacks well, while the National September 11 Memorial & Museum estimates that 100 million Americans are too young to remember that day.
This year, victims’ families will gather Friday at the 9/11 Memorial plaza in lower Manhattan to read the names of the 2,977 people killed in 2001 and the six killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The 25th anniversary ceremony will include six moments of silence marking the attacks and collapses, followed by a seventh honoring those lost to 9/11-related illnesses and injuries.
The public can watch the ceremony live online. At 8 p.m. ET, Disney and its affiliates will also air 9/11 TRIBUTE IN LIGHT: LIVE FROM LOWER MANHATTAN across ABC, Disney+, Hulu, National Geographic and ABC News Live, pairing the familiar twin beams with music and stories of service.
“The courage, bravery, and heroism displayed in response to 9/11 is a reminder of who we are as Americans. I’m honored to lend my voice to this moment, and to recognize the first responders, families, and communities whose service and sacrifice continue to inspire us 25 years later,” singer-songwriter Lainey Wilson said.
For families, remembering does not mean handing grief the final word. It means mourning with those who mourn, naming evil truthfully, honoring sacrificial courage and teaching children why ordinary people ran toward danger to help strangers.
A nation that remembers leaves room for grief, gratitude, vigilance and service. Twenty-five years later, those 2,977 lives still deserve nothing less.
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