Statement from Rev. Jesse Jackson on the 14th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001

buzzz worthy. . .

On this day 14 years ago, hatred and madness scarred but did not break the spirit and the soul of our nation. By days end, nearly 3,000 Americans – including Christians, Jews and Muslims – would be dead, slaughtered in the worst terrorist attack to ever bloody U.S. soil.

Yet, as horrific as the events of 9/11 were, the day was filled with the heroism of ordinary Americans – from the passengers on United Flight 93 who resisted the evil and prevented even more death and destruction to the first responders who rushed into the blinding dust and flames of collapsing office towers to save lives, risking, and often losing, their own in the process.

Today, terrorism still stalks the lives of too many of our brothers and sisters around the world and here at home. The Confederate flag may be coming down across the South but the Confederate agenda remains, poisoning hearts and minds. In June, a young white man, reportedly determined to start a race war, walked into the historic Mother Emanuel church in downtown Charleston and gunned down nine black worshipers who had welcomed him with loving and open arms. And remember, April was the 20^th anniversary month of the second worst terrorist attack in American history, the truck bomb explosion that brought down the federal building in Oklahoma City, an act of terror committed by a former U.S. soldier, Timothy McVeigh.

Nations and governments also wage terror campaigns. The terror of war has uprooted hundreds of thousands of Syrian men, women and children, sending them on perilous journeys across the sea in dangerously crowded and leaky vessels. Who can get out of their head the image of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, his tiny lifeless body washed ashore on a Turkish beach? The small, overcrowded boat the child was riding in capsized and the toddler drowned in the Mediterranean Sea as his family tried to escape their war-torn homeland.

  

The forces of peace are also on the march. President Obama has moved to normalize relations with Cuba and to end the nuclear tensions with Iran despite Republican resistance to peace and commonsense.

And the President just announced that the United States will take in 10,000 Syrian refugees, a good start, yet so much more needs to be done for the Syrians and the world.

Let us honor the memories of those who died on 9/11 by continuing to march, work and pray for peace and human rights for all. We are the passengers of Flight 93. We are the first responders. 

Together we can transform the world.

Keep Hope Alive!

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.