Ta Lese Morrow, Publisher, Inland Valley News

Upland, CA — There are moments in life when you know, almost immediately, that something has changed.

September 11, 2001, was one of those moments.

I was sitting in Mr. Muhammed’s history class when the images began unfolding on television. Like millions of Americans, we were trying to understand what we were seeing. Then came the second plane.

I remember watching it hit.

Even now, 25 years later, I can still remember the feeling in that classroom — the confusion, the disbelief and the realization that what we were witnessing was no longer an accident.

Mr. Muhammed began talking to us about what might come next. He talked about war.

At the time, I do not know that any of us fully understood what that meant. We were students sitting in a classroom, watching something horrifying happen hundreds of miles away. War was something we learned about in history books. Suddenly, our teacher was explaining that the events playing out before us could send our own country into one.

And he was right.

That morning became one of the defining moments of our generation.

Nearly 3,000 people would lose their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon and aboard Flight 93. Families would be forever changed. First responders would become symbols of extraordinary courage and sacrifice. American troops would eventually be sent into conflicts that would continue for years.

But on that morning, we did not know all of that yet.

We simply knew that something terrible had happened.

For those of us who lived through September 11, the memories are often remarkably specific. We remember where we were. We remember who we were with. We remember the television screens. We remember the phone calls. We remember the fear and uncertainty.

I remember Mr. Muhammed’s history class.

There is something particularly powerful about realizing that I was sitting in a history classroom while history itself was unfolding in front of us.

Twenty-five years later, an entire generation of young people knows September 11 only as something they have read about, watched in documentaries or discussed in school. For them, it is history.

For many of us, it is memory.

That distinction makes this anniversary especially important.

As the years pass, remembrance requires intention. We have a responsibility to tell younger generations not only what happened on September 11, but what the day felt like.

There was fear.

There was anger.

There was uncertainty about what would happen next.

But there was also extraordinary courage.

Firefighters climbed stairwells while others were running down them. Police officers, paramedics and emergency personnel rushed toward devastation. Passengers aboard Flight 93 acted after learning what was happening elsewhere. Ordinary people helped strangers. Communities donated blood, gathered in prayer and searched for ways to help.

In the days following the attacks, there was also a sense of unity that many Americans still remember vividly.

For a moment, the things that divided us seemed smaller than what connected us.

Twenty-five years later, perhaps that is one of the lessons worth remembering most.

September 11 reminds us of the cost of hatred and violence, but it also reminds us of the capacity people have to show courage, compassion and humanity in the face of unimaginable circumstances.

For me, remembrance will always begin in that classroom.

I can still picture the television.

I can still remember watching the second plane.

And I can still hear my history teacher trying to explain to a room full of students that the world we knew was about to change.

He was teaching history that day.

None of us realized we were living through it.

As we mark the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, we remember those whose lives were taken, those who rushed forward to help, those who served in the years that followed and the families who have carried their loss for a quarter-century.

And for those of us who remember exactly where we were that morning, we continue to tell the story.

Because 25 years later, remembering still matters.