9/11: The Night that Race Didn't matter
Tonight NBC did something major on their coverage of 9/11, they featured Officer Maldano, a man of color, who was merely a child when that awful day occurred. Currently, Maldano was deployed to Iran and Afghanistan.
I cannot tell you how many calls I have received through the years, asking if any Black people were hurt amongst the 3,000 fatalities. It seemed as though, there were hardly been any interviews to that point.
As the only African-American woman and Female Chaplain for the NYPD, I was there on the front lines. That day started out as an election day for local NY Primaries.
On the horrific day, prior to reporting to headquarters, I took my mother to the polls, and as I was returning her home in her driveway, my husband said " A plane just hit the towers." Being a New Yorker, the news almost numb to pain and trauma, and used to bad news as the norm, I along with my neighbors, thought we would hear about it later on the noon news.
September 11, 2001 was a busy day, like most folks I was busy. I was preparing to pick up a guest pastor from the Bahamas, visiting my local parish in the Bronx, for what would be a three day revival, as spiritual renewal, to begin the school year, and also preparing for the lunchtime ministry I do on Wednesday right down the block from where the towers stood. This guest minister's wife had flown in a day early to surprise him, and was staying at the LaGuardia Marriott. He had changed his flight, so all we knew was the landing time.
As I entered what was then the Triboro Bridge, the police officers and Port Authority were waving frantically to STOP. As I approached the bridge, I began to see the second tower's flames, looking Black as coal, and a building in the distance seeming to crumble.
I continued on to LaGuardia, but by this time pandemonium had broken out. The clerks, the ticket desk agents, the security, the passengers were all outside. No one had sophisticated cell phones, so we relied on Radios and Walkie-Talkies to let us know what had happened.
Our vehicles are emergency vehicles, so I went right into action, helping police officers, firefighters report to their commands, and there was an elderly Black couple, who no one was sharing their cab with, who had gone on their plane to the tarmac, on their first flight, and were brought back to the airport.
I gave them a ride. Picked up my kids and other service officers' children from school, and for the next 60 days, we were in front line action. My parish's revival never happened and lunchtime ministries at the Old John Street Church the next week would create a new definition of PASTOR.
But that night... that first eerie night, as we arrived at Ground Zero, there was this thick Grey soot, looking like snow. It was the incinerated papers and remains of bodies and toxins flowing through the air, and anyone outside and anything outside was covered in it. Not Black, not White, but Gray. It didn't matter if I were Baptist or another Jewish or another Catholic, we were all New Yorkers, all trying to find our comrades, and all trying to get ready to bring a new normalcy to a traumatic situation.
Race did not matter. No one asked, or maybe even knew, about the 9/ll operators, mainly Black and Latina women, who had been on the phones with people as they screamed their last cries for help that I had to minister to for WEEKS following the tragedy.
And then there were our colleagues, Father Michael Judge,who I'd met on an interfaith trip to the Holy Lands with Dave Dinkins and Dr. Ruth., as our first Chaplain casualty. And now, he was gone.
For a few short days, we worked together, cried together, prayed together, worshipped together, rescued and recovered together.
Covered with Gray. No Black No White. Only American.
My prayers are extended to all the families who lost loved ones and a shout out to all the unsung heroes who helped saved more lives than you'll ever know.
Ambassador Suzan Johnson Cook is the former US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom for the United States of America. Nominated by Secretary Clinton and appointed by President Obama, she had the privileges of having Sec Clinton as her Senator when this all happened, and working with Pres Obama when he came to dedicate the site, and the honor of working for the NYPD, for 21 years, as its first female Chaplain. She believes we have to tackle ISIS and religious extremism.She is a columnist for Huffington Post, and a regular contributor to CNN and MSNBC. She can be reached at ProVoiceMovement@gmail.com