In the wake of the fifteenth anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks, the staff of the AMHS Talon would like to take time to remember the 3000+ lives lost and all the families the event affected. The 2016-2017 school year marks the first time an entire class of students will be learning about 9/11 as a historical event, as many of the members of the Class of 2020 were not yet born during the attack. We reached out to the AMHS Faculty to see if any of the teachers could provide a firsthand account of the event, and English teacher, Mrs. Grayson, who was teaching in the Bronx at the time, agreed to be interviewed. This is her story.

At Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School Mrs. Grayson was preparing to teach her students for their first Tuesday of block classes. During the lesson on poetry, a student named Monica was twenty minutes late. Why would she be late for school on the first day of class?

When questioned about her tardiness, she apologized and said she was watching the news. Apparently, an airplane had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Mrs. Grayson excused the girl and continued teaching. She had no idea of the extent of the damage, as the terror attacks preceded the days of electronically available news updates.

Eventually, her lesson was interrupted by a teacher wheeling a television on a cart into

the classroom. They turned on the news to show footage of the flaming North Tower and the frantic men and women scrambling around Downtown Manhattan. Mrs. Grayson reflected upon how confused everyone was, as the attack was initially being reported as an aviation accident. But, when she and the class witnessed United Flight 175 bombard the South Tower, everyone knew that this was an act of terror.

Moments after this horrific broadcast, Mrs. Grayson received her first text message. It was from her father, and he was asking her to call. Of course, he was concerned that she was okay. Although she was in New York City, Mrs. Grayson was in the Bronx, which is the borough north of Manhattan, so she was far enough away from the World Trade Center to consider herself safe.

As the day progressed, and stories of an attack on the Pentagon and an attempted attack on the White House were reported, many of the students were picked up by their parents or were allowed to go home. She began to think how she was going to get to her home in Brooklyn because the commute required her to travel through the closed off tunnels and bridges of Manhattan. Thankfully, the school’s principal, who drove that day, was able to take Mrs. Grayson home. She recalled the principal looking visibly shaken and distraught and later found out that the administrator’s cousin was a firefighter and lost his life in the incident.

I asked Mrs. Grayson if she knew anyone else who had lost their lives that day and she told me that her best friend from high school lost two close friends in the attack. She says that now she is always hesitant to fly on planes and feels rather anxious anytime the low-flying Boeing C17’s from the nearby Air Force base are overhead.

The attack on September 11, 2001 remains to this day the worst domestic act of terror in United States history. We must remember all who died that fateful day whether it was because they were simply going about their normal day, or died as heroes saving the lives of innocent people.