A Reflection: The Capitol Was Spared on 9/11

January 19, 2021

There are indelible images that mark moments of rupture. They stay with us, engraved in our mind’s eye, precisely because they capture the unthinkable; because they signal a profound and forever irreversible shift in our expectations of the possible.

Sometimes, these are images that expand in positive ways the boundaries of our previously presumed limitations. Buzz Aldrin, standing before an American flag, just planted on the surface of the moon.

Others not so much.

Jackie Kennedy in that pink Chanel suit climbing onto the trunk of the open-top presidential limousine. Andrew Young and others on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, pointing in the direction of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassin, as the civil rights leader lay dying at their feet. The Oklahoma City firefighter cradling in his arms a limp, fatally wounded baby girl following the bombing of the Murrah Building. The towers burning.

And, this past week, the images of an angry mob of American citizens storming the U.S. Capitol building in a frenzy of destruction, desecration, vandalism, and mayhem. Another moment of profound disequilibrium when our eyes were seeing what our minds cannot yet fathom.

The reprehensible assault on the Capitol on January 6 has been characterized as insurrection, sedition, and an act of domestic terrorism. In nine months’ time, we will mark the 20th anniversary of another terrorist attack, one in which terrorists sought to humiliate America by targeting and destroying the symbols of our nation’s economic, military, and democratic strength. In addition to the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, it is presumed that the hijackers aboard United Flight 93 had their sights turned to the Capitol building. Congress was in session, and what more dramatic way to undermine democracy than to willfully fly a Boeing 757 filled with enough fuel for a transcontinental flight into the seat of our government and the beating heart of our democracy?

Of course, on 9/11, passengers and crew aboard that doomed flight took the matter into their own hands. They attempted to wrest control of the plane from the hijackers, and in the process, they sacrificed their own lives to prevent another horrific attack. While they could not know for certain where the plane was headed, they did know about the other crashes that had taken place earlier that morning, and they were all too aware that their plane, originally en route to San Francisco, had been turned around and was now headed back east. Their counterassault forced the hijackers to abandon their plan. Just 20 minutes from our nation’s capital, they intentionally downed the plane, crashing it into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and killing all on board.

The Capitol was spared on 9/11. The heinous intention of terrorists who had targeted the seat of American power in an attempt to threaten our democracy failed, as did the shocking actions of those engaged in attacking the People’s House and our democratic processes on January 6. But, this time, the forces engaged in acts of destruction have come from within, not from without.

As we all try to assimilate the horror of this new reality, it would do us well to remember another indelible image that came in the wake of the attacks of 9/11. It came, in fact, on the evening of September 11, 2001. Having evacuated the Capitol earlier in the day, approximately 150 Members of Congress – Representatives as well as Senators, Democrats and Republicans – stood side by side on the East Front steps of the building. Following a moment of silence, those who had gathered together on the steps of the Capitol spontaneously sang “God Bless America.” A reporter for one of Australia’s leading newspapers observed: “They stood shaken and tearful on the steps of the Capitol, their love of nation and all that it symbolizes plain for the world to see.”

What the world saw on January 6 was the terrifying and heartbreaking reality of a nation at war with itself. What it also saw was the resolve of our congressional leadership, shaken but undeterred, determined to resume its work in the aftermath of deadly violence and an unimaginable assault on our symbol of freedom. While we may have just witnessed a moment of rupture, that’s the indelible image I choose to remember.

By Alice M. Greenwald, President & CEO, National September 11 Memorial & Museum