All posts tagged: Oklahoma City National Memorial

Remembering Oklahoma City

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Twenty years ago today, an unspeakable horror took place at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Five years ago, I visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial, erected to memorialize the lives lost, and wrote this post about that place and the need for remembrance. In his recent series about Why Old Places Matter?, my  colleague Tom Mayes wrote about the importance of memory.  He quotes Randall Mason in noting that “Memory is an essential part of consciousness….”  Tom adds, “Memory contributes to the sense of continuity. Memory also gives people identity—both individual identity and a collective identity.” No place demonstrates that better than the Oklahoma City National Memorial. At the 20th anniversary of the events of April 19, 1995, this memorial continues to help us to remember, while also helping us to regain the consciousness we need as humans. More to come… DJB

Oklahoma City National Memorial: The power of remembrance

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When in Oklahoma City last week, I made the time to visit the national memorial dedicated to the memory of those killed, wounded, or changed forever by the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. It was a powerful experience that would  be moving at any time.  In these days of bombing attempts in Times Square and daily cable television rants against government, the power of remembrance seemed all the more important.  This place – forever altered in horrific ways 15 years ago by the act of an individual angry at the federal government’s actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge – is a somber counterpoint to the hysteria that counts as civic discourse in parts of America today. One enters the outdoor symbolic memorial through a gate marked 9:01 – the minute before the bombing – to represent the innocence of the city.  At the other end of a reflecting pool, the west gate is marked 9:03, after everything changed.  The best known feature of the memorial is the field of empty …