The day, Sept. 11, 2001, is seeded in my mind and soul forever.
I was on one of the few planes still flying that morning. We landed at National Airport around 8 a.m., before the first tower was hit. Then U.S.-Rep. David Camp was sitting next to me. Before we left Detroit, I turned to him and said, "I have the weirdest feeling. If you weren’t sitting next to me, I think I would get off this plane."
We had no idea what was about to happen. As we watched planes crash into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon was attacked, and reports came that another plane might be headed toward the Capitol. But none of us fully understood what we were witnessing.
My husband, John, was in the Capitol. When people were being told to leave, he refused. He said, “No
one is going to chase me out of the symbol of our democracy. I fought in World War II, and I’m staying here.” (Editor's note: The late John Dingell represented Michigan in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1955-2015.)
Friends working at the White House came to my General Motors Foundation office in downtown DC, terrified. Secret Service agents had told women in heels to take off their shoes and run. Everything we knew about safety and normal life seemed to disappear in a matter of hours. No one was able to fly home. A few days later, John and I drove back to Michigan with Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur. We were deeply worried about Dearborn, our hometown, and about the possibility of backlash and violence against our Muslim neighbors.
We chose community over fear
President George W. Bush addressed the nation at a Joint Session of Congress on Sept. 20, but we stayed in Dearborn because we believed that in a moment of fear, we had a responsibility to stand with our community and fight hatred wherever we saw it. Bill Ford and John Dingell hosted a candlelight vigil at the Henry Ford Museum. Thousands came. There was fear, and there was faith. There was grief, but there was also an extraordinary sense that we were going to stand together.
Then came the names. Friends who were lost. Sons and daughters of friends. One of John’s dearest friends. Firefighters and police officers who ran into burning buildings to save people and never came home. The grief was overwhelming.
But something else happened in those days that I will never forget: America came together.
It was one of the most horrific times in our nation’s history, and yet, in some ways, it was also one of the most special. We had been attacked, and we pulled together. For a brief time, the things that divided us seemed smaller than the things that united us. We talked to each other. We listened. We comforted strangers. We checked on neighbors. We reached across differences of faith, race and background. We spent time trying to understand one another rather than turning away. The Jewish community worked hard to support the Muslim community. Communities reached across lines of faith and ethnicity. People who might never have spoken to one another before stood together. Bridges were built.
The bridges we built are in danger
Twenty-five years later, I look around our country and worry about how many of those bridges are gone or endangered. Antisemitism is real. Hatred and fear directed at Muslims are real. Racism is real. Political and religious hatred can turn quickly into threats, violence and tragedy. We should be worried ‒ not because America is weak, but because we know how quickly fear can divide us if we allow it to. America did not deserve 9/11. No country deserves terrorism, hatred or violence. And no American should be made to feel unsafe because of their faith, religion, race, ethnicity or heritage.
As we mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11, we will remember the nearly 3,000 people who were killed, and the countless families whose lives were changed forever. We will remember the firefighters, police officers, first responders and ordinary citizens who showed extraordinary courage. But remembrance must be more than looking backward. We should also remember who we were in the days after.
We were frightened, but we did not have to be consumed by fear. We were grieving, but we reached out to one another. We were attacked, but we did not have to turn our anger against innocent people in our own communities. We found strength in coming together. That is the lesson I hope we carry into the next 25 years.
We cannot change what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. We cannot bring back those we lost. But we can decide what their memory asks of us.
The lesson of Sept. 11 is not simply that evil exists. We already knew that. The lesson is that in our darkest moments, we have a choice about who we will be. We can retreat into fear, suspicion and hatred. Or we can choose courage. We can choose compassion. We can choose to protect one another.
Remembering is not enough
That choice asks us to reject hatred.
It asks us to stand up against antisemitism, racism and Islamophobia whenever and wherever they appear. It asks us to protect the freedom to worship, to live, to speak and to belong. And most of all, it asks us to remember that our greatest strength has never been that we all agree. It is that, even in our deepest moments of fear and grief, we have the capacity to come together.
I will never forget Sept. 11. I will never forget the fear. I will never forget the people we lost. But I also will never forget the extraordinary humanity I saw in the days that followed. Twenty-five years later, that is the part of Sept. 11 we need most.
Debbie Dingell represents Michigan's 6th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it in print or online.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: America answered 9/11 with unity. We can come together again. | Opinion
