It’s been 25 years since the horrific attacks of 9/11. In the immediate aftermath, there was a hope that this nightmare would compel the nation to adopt a more serious approach to politics and foreign policy. That didn’t happen. President George W. Bush also urged the country to not allow 9/11 to give rise to greater Islamophobia. These days, anti-Muslim bigotry appears to be more prevalent, at least when it comes to Republican politicians and right-wing figures spreading and weaponizing this hatred. Five years ago, I wrote this remembrance of that awful morning to highlight the lessons we should have learned and to honor the passengers of Flight 93, whose courageous actions likely saved many lives, possibly my own.

“They’re attacking. They’re attacking.”

That’s what a woman shouted when I asked what was happening. I was walking past the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, and Senate staffers were pouring onto the street on a gorgeous September morning. Who? I asked her. Where? “The Pentagon, the Mall, the White House, everywhere!” she exclaimed and hurried past. I rushed to the modest Nation magazine bureau—my one-room office in a building between the Supreme Court and the Senate buildings, half a block east of the Capitol—and flipped on an old black-and-white television set.

The towers were burning. People were leaping from unimaginable heights. The Pentagon had been hit. I called home to make sure my wife knew what was happening. I tried phoning family in New York City but couldn’t get through. I glanced at email. There was a message my editor in New York had sent a few minutes before 9 a.m. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, but she noted that this was unlikely to affect the issue going to press the next day. That was before the second airliner struck at 9:03 a.m. Everything had already changed.

I grabbed a notebook and raced outside into chaos. The Capitol and the office buildings had been evacuated. Legislators and staffers milled about on the streets. No one knew what to do or where to go. No one was in charge. Capitol Hill officers circulated without any apparent direction. Rumors were rampant: George W. Bush was dead.........

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