25 Years Later, 9/11 is Shifting From a Memory Into a History Lesson

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Alexis Madrigal (0:34)

Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. It is that day again, September 11th. I remember where I was on September 11th, 2001, the morning it happened. I was a college sophomore just waking up in the dorms. My then-girlfriend had grown up in Manhattan and the news devastated her. In the hours that followed, we clustered around TV's surreal mixing with real. Mostly, I remember the confusion and the fear. What exactly had happened to the towers? Would there be more attacks? Over time, we've learned more and more about the specific events of the day. But at the same time, there's been a parallel action of forgetting.

Thirty percent of Americans alive today were not alive on September 11, 2001 Many more were children. What will they know of 9-11?

As Berkeley professor Michael Mark Cohen puts it, this is an event that's passing from memory to history.

What do we want to teach future generations about what happened that day, and what happened to our country in its aftermath? Cohen joins us this morning. He teaches American and African-American studies at UC Berkeley, including the course that inspired our approach to this morning show. It's called History of the Present, The US. After 9-11. Welcome, Michael. Thank you.

Michael Mark Cohen (1:50)

I'm happy to be here.

Alexis Madrigal (1:52)

Well, that's going to be our frame this morning.

First, we want to return to that morning in 2001 in the Financial District, and we're joined by Geraldine Baum, who's a former New York correspondent and Bureau Chief for the Los Angeles Times, and she was in lower Manhattan covering the attacks that day for the newspaper. Welcome to Forum.

Geraldine Baum (2:13)

Thank you. Thank you for including me today.

Alexis Madrigal (2:16)

So Geraldine, let's just start here. What do you think is most important for people to know about what was happening actually on the ground in lower Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001?

Geraldine Baum (2:30)

Well, I think you said it. Uttershock, chaos, confusion, dust, unbreathable air, and things you just had never seen before as a New Yorker.

Alexis Madrigal (2:45)

Like what? What are some of those things that you remember?

Geraldine Baum (2:48)

You know, I had to go back and read, because memory does fail, my own, an article I wrote 10 years after for the Los Angeles Times. I had saved my notebook and sort of used it, as I said, as my passport back in time. You know, I was just making my way south towards the towers and, you know, a piece of an airplane on the street on Warren Avenue. I was there when the buildings were falling, seeing cop cars racing backwards up Church Street.

People with broken shoes, covered in dust. My hair, I didn't realize. I was completely white. Just, you know, I was there watching as bodies fell off the towers. So these are things even in Manhattan you don't see.

Alexis Madrigal (3:37)

Yeah. Yeah, I was struck reading some of your reflections from your notebook, too.

Just trying to find words for what it was that was going on. I think at one point you said, you know, it was like Beirut, you know, recalling the Civil War there, destroyed a large part of the city.

Geraldine Baum (3:54)

And I think I said something somewhat foolish because obviously I didn't know, but I jotted down this because of the whiteness. Was this a nuclear summer? Something like that I wrote. But yeah, it was crazy.

Alexis Madrigal (4:07)

Yeah. What about the people who didn't lose their lives in the towers, but who were there?

There's a lot of reflections that you have of people who were working in the delis, or people who were just working as cab drivers, the everyday life of people in Manhattan.

Geraldine Baum (4:29)

All right. I mean, think about it. We all just went to work that day. It was another beautiful blue sky day in Manhattan, and we all just went to our jobs. And as I walked south, as I was down there interviewing people, they were gobsmacked. I interviewed a Walter Pulyiak, who walked down 85 flights, a businessman. I saw another guy in a suit just marching uptown. Everyone was moving uptown, but the journalists and the rescue workers, and people looking for family. But there was this swarm of people moving uptown as we all went downtown. And that they were holding briefcases, carrying themselves as if they were frozen in time.