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“For today’s students, the challenge is not simply to learn the chronology of Sept. 11. It is to understand its human meaning. To understand courage alongside loss. To understand the importance of service. To understand what it means to care for a neighbor in a moment of crisis.”
Twenty-five years ago, I experienced Sept. 11 as a college student. I was a student at Florida A&M University (FAMU), where my band mates in the world famous Marching 100 were preparing to board a charter bus to travel with the Rattler football team. Then the news came: A plane had struck the World Trade Center. Another had hit the Pentagon. And then another had crashed in Pennsylvania.
Like millions of Americans, I remember that morning vividly. I remember the uncertainty, the fear, the disbelief. I remember the images that seemed impossible to comprehend. And I remember the days and weeks that followed: grief, questions, and alongside the terrible loss, an extraordinary sense of connection among people who under ordinary circumstances might never have crossed paths.
Today I am a college president. And there is something different about Sept. 11 in 2026: Many of the students entering our classrooms were born after the attacks. They know Sept. 11 as history. They may have studied the events, visited the 9/11 Memorial, heard stories from their parents or teachers, or seen the photographs and footage that have become part of their collective memory. But they did not experience that morning.
That raises a question every generation must confront: What do we owe a generation that does not remember?
We owe them the truth. We owe them the stories. And we owe them an understanding of what happened, not simply on Sept. 11, but in the days, months and years that followed. Sept. 11 was not only a story of unimaginable loss. It was also a story of people.
It was the firefighter who ran toward danger while others were running away. The police officer, paramedic, nurse and construction worker who answered a call for help. The transit worker who helped people find their way home. The teacher who comforted frightened children. The neighbor who opened a door. The stranger who offered a ride, a meal, a phone or simply a hand. It was a story of New Yorkers. And it was a story of communities coming together.
The Bronx—and certainly Bronx Community College—has always understood something about resilience. It is a borough shaped by generations of people who have faced difficult circumstances and continued to build, serve, care for their families and invest in their communities. Sept. 11 revealed that same spirit across New York City.
People from the Bronx traveled to Manhattan to assist. Manhattan residents sought refuge in Brooklyn and Queens. Staten Islanders opened their homes. Long Islanders volunteered. Communities throughout the region responded. First responders came from firehouses, precincts and hospitals across the five boroughs and beyond.
Twenty-five years later, that shared experience is part of what makes remembering Sept. 11 so important. But remembering is not simply about preserving the past. It is about helping the next generation understand what the past asks of them. That is where colleges and universities have a special responsibility.
Education, at its heart, is an exchange between generations. A student enters a classroom carrying the hopes of a family. A professor shares knowledge shaped by years of experience. An alum returns to tell a student what was possible. A graduate leaves campus to become a nurse, teacher, engineer, health-care professional, business owner, public servant or community leader.
Generations meet on college campuses every day. Recently, I heard from Clinton, a 65-year-old current BCC student who shared his frightening experience surviving Sept. 11. He is now making his fourth attempt to earn an associate degree, determined to finish despite lifelong struggles with dyslexia and reading. His story is a reminder that our classrooms bring together people with very different histories, experiences and challenges—all with something to teach one another.
That means memory cannot be left entirely to monuments. It must live in our classrooms, our conversations, our communities and our institutions. For today’s students, the challenge is not simply to learn the chronology of Sept. 11. It is to understand its human meaning. To understand courage alongside loss. To understand the importance of service. To understand what it means to care for a neighbor in a moment of crisis.
Every generation inherits a world shaped by the generations before it. Every generation then has the opportunity and responsibility to decide what it will carry forward.
At Bronx Community College, we are celebrating our 70th anniversary this year. For seven decades, BCC has been a place where generations meet, where New Yorkers from different backgrounds and of different ages come together and where students prepare to shape the future of their communities.
As we remember September 11 this year, we will honor those who lost their lives and those whose lives were changed forever. We will recognize the first responders and countless others whose service continues to inspire us.
But we will also ask our students to consider a larger question: What kind of New York can we help build?
Many of our students will never know September 11 as we knew it. But they can know that when New York was tested, people from every corner of this city and region showed up for one another. That is the legacy worth preserving.
Twenty-five years after that terrible morning, we will remember those we lost. But let us also remember who we were in the aftermath and consider who we want to be now. The most meaningful way to honor the past is not simply to remember it. It is to carry its best lessons forward.
Larry D. Johnson, Jr. is the president of Bronx Community College of The City University of New York.