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PHOTOGRAPH BY GWEN FAULKNER
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By Debra Adams Simmons, Executive Editor, HISTORY
From bells tolling at One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan to ceremonies near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, there was much to take in this weekend as the U.S. remembered the 2,977 people who were killed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack.
On this 20th anniversary, we continue to pay tribute to those who lost their lives and we recognize those left behind to continue their legacies.
Among those we pause to honor were three Washington, D.C. 11-year-olds: Bernard Brown, Asia Cottom, and Rodney Dickens; three teachers; and two National Geographic staff members. The group was on American Airlines Flight 77 to Los Angeles for an ecology conference at the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary in Santa Barbara sponsored by Nat Geo. At 9:37 a.m., five hijackers slammed the plane that had taken off from Dulles Airport into the Pentagon’s west side.
“Today, when Bernard, Asia, and Rodney would be 31 years old, it’s devastating to think of our collective loss,” Nat Geo Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg writes.
I can’t help but think about what they would be doing now had their lives not been stolen. I think about the parents who took their children to the airport that day and about what they must be thinking today. Asia’s parents, Clifton and Michelle, wrote a book in 2014 about her life, Asia’s New Wings: The Untold Story of a Young Girl Lost on 9/11, and started the Asia SiVon Cottom Memorial Scholarship in her honor, a program that has awarded more than $280,000 in college funds to 103 students.
Teachers Sara Clark, James Debeuneure, and Hilda Taylor were with the students. Sara, 65, and her fiancé were making wedding arrangements. James, 58, a father and grandfather, enjoyed golf and collecting art. Hilda, 58, a mother and grandmother, loved to cook and work in her garden. They were accompanied by National Geographic employees. Ann Judge, 49, arranged trips around the world for our journalists and executives; Joe Ferguson, 39, loved teaching children about geography.
Their stories are not lost. Each year we learn more about the lives cut short and so much more about the people left behind. The Atlantic’s Jennifer Senior recently wrote a poignant story about how one family processed its grief, themes carried forward in Nat Geo’s stirring documentary, One Day in America, streaming on Hulu. (Pictured above, members of the group traveling with National Geographic pause in Dulles International Airport for a photo before their flight. From left to right: James Debeuneure, Rodney Dickens, Bernard Brown, Hilda Taylor, Asia Cottom, Joe Ferguson, and Ann Judge.)
At the September 11th Memorial and Museum where the twin towers once stood, more than 70,000 seemingly ordinary objects tell the stories of that day. Rosemary Smith descended 57 flights to make it out of the World Trade Center following a 1993 attack, but on September 11, 2001, she forwarded calls to an answering machine as her co-workers evacuated. She did not make it out in time. Her remains and watch were found on Christmas Eve.
I worked briefly in One World Trade for one of the first companies to move into the new tower. The soaring new building, a symbol of America’s fortitude and a testament to the resilience of New Yorkers, helped launch a cultural Renaissance in Lower Manhattan. But every time I stepped into that fortress I knew I was walking on hallowed ground. I would stop regularly and read the 2,977 names on the bronze memorial.
I also was keenly aware of the sacred African Burial Ground whose artifacts and remains, disturbed to make room for development, were stored in the basement of Six World Trade. Nearly one million artifacts from the Five Points community and the burial ground were destroyed when Tower One fell onto the building.
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