Latest news with #BranchDavidian
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Deseret News archives: Texas, Oklahoma tragedies revealed tensions in the U.S.
A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives. On April 19, 1993, the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended as the Davidians set fire to their compound following an FBI tear gas attack. Seventy-five people, including 25 children and sect leader David Koresh, were killed. Exactly two years later, in 1995, Timothy McVeigh, seeking to strike at the government he blamed for the Branch Davidian deaths two years earlier, destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. McVeigh was convicted of federal murder charges and executed in 2001. In both cases, those involved in the incidents felt government agencies were intruding in their personal lives. And just like that, in the space of 730 days, Americans were reminded that terror can come in unlikely places and lead to harsh conclusions. Some historians also note that the American Revolutionary War began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord — the start of an eight-year armed conflict between American colonists and the British Army — on April 19, 1975. On Feb. 28, 1993, a gun battle erupted at a religious compound near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh on weapons charges; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began. The siege boiled over on April 19, as the compound burned to the ground after FBI agents in an armored vehicle smashed the buildings and pumped in tear gas. The Justice Department said cult members set the fire. Here are stories from Deseret News archives about the Waco incident: 'Lesson from Waco: Religion matters when dealing with the nonconventional' 'Waco documentary indicates agents fired at trapped cult members' 'Cult leader? 'Sinful Messiah'? 25 years later, interest in David Koresh still strong' 'FBI's lies, siege at Waco unjustified' On April 19, 1995, a date purposely chosen, American Timothy McVeigh detonated explosives planted in a truck outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He plotted the attack with two fellow Army veterans who shared his anti-government views, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier. The Oklahoma City Bombing killed 168 people, including 19 children, and wounded hundreds more, in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history to that date. Before he was executed in 2001, McVeigh made it clear that he intended the bombing as retribution for the deaths at Waco and the Ruby Ridge standoff in northern Idaho in 1992, and had deliberately planned the bombing to take place on the second anniversary of the Waco disaster. Here are stories from Deseret News archives related to the Oklahoma City bombing: 'We've taken notice, but will we learn?' 'FBI explanation of missing Oklahoma City bombing tapes not credible, judge says' 'Impact of '95 Oklahoma City bombing still felt' 'Judge talks of surviving 1995 blast and 9/11″ 'Nichols says bombing was FBI op'
Chicago Tribune
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Supreme Court rules on spanking schoolchildren
Today is Saturday, April 19, the 109th day of 2025. There are 256 days left in the year. Today in history: On April 19, 1977, the Supreme Court, in Ingraham v. Wright, ruled 5-4 that even severe spanking of schoolchildren by faculty members did not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. Also on this date: In 1775, the American Revolutionary War began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord—the start of an eight-year armed conflict between American colonists and the British Army. In 1897, the first Boston Marathon was held. Winner John J. McDermott ran the course in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds. In 1943, during World War II, tens of thousands of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but ultimately futile uprising against Nazi forces. In 1989, 47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa during training exercises in the Caribbean. In 1993, the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended as the Davidians set fire to their compound following an FBI tear gas attack. Seventy-five people, including 25 children and sect leader David Koresh, were killed. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh, seeking to strike at the government he blamed for the Branch Davidian deaths two years earlier, destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (McVeigh was convicted of federal murder charges and executed in 2001.) In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope in the first conclave of the new millennium; he took the name Benedict XVI. In 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings, was taken into custody after a manhunt that had left the city virtually paralyzed. His older brother and alleged accomplice, 26-year-old Tamerlan, was killed earlier in a furious attempt to escape police. In 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, died a week after suffering a spinal cord injury in the back of a Baltimore police van while he was handcuffed and shackled. (Six police officers were charged. Three were acquitted and the city's top prosecutor eventually dropped the three remaining cases.) Today's Birthdays: Singer-songwriter Roberto Carlos is 84. Actor Tim Curry is 79. Motorsports Hall of Famer Al Unser Jr. is 63. Actor Ashley Judd is 57. Latin pop singer Luis Miguel is 55. Actor James Franco is 47. Actor Kate Hudson is 46. Actor Hayden Christensen is 44. Football Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu is 44. Actor-comedian Ali Wong is 43. Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Mauer is 42. Former WNBA star Candace Parker is 39. Former tennis player Maria Sharapova is 38. Actor Simu Liu is 36.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
After 30 years, is the searing memory of the Oklahoma City bombing starting to fade?
Just after 9 a.m. on April 19, 1995, Jason Williamson was on the phone, helping a customer work out the logistics of a complex cash withdrawal. At 24, his stint as a phone teller at the federal employees credit union in downtown Oklahoma City was his first real job since earning his college business degree. His desk on the third floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building sat to the left of the teller windows serving in-person customers who had come in on a sunny Wednesday morning. As he spoke into the receiver, Williamson briefly noticed the lights flickering before the world suddenly went pitch black and quiet – then, all at once, he was engulfed by a deafening roar and the feeling that he was in free fall, plummeting into the earth. At 9:02 a.m. on that day 30 years ago, a 4,800-pound fertilizer bomb detonated in a Ryder truck parked outside the north entrance of Oklahoma City's federal building. The blast left 168 people dead, 19 of them children, and injured nearly 700 more. It destroyed or damaged more than 300 buildings. More: Clinton: OKC bombing paused harsh politics for a while, but it is as divisive as ever today 'It remains the worst event ever of domestic terrorism in the U.S.,' said former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who was barely a few months into his term at the time. 'And I hope it stays that way." So far, it has. But the event upended Americans' sense of safety, lay bare the rage of anti-government sentiment and galvanized a grieving city determined to help survivors and ensure the memories of the lost lived on. Three decades later, experts say its long-lasting impacts are complicated: From lessons learned about the power of a unified community to those less grasped about the grievances of growing right-wing extremism − all amid concerns the horrific event is slipping from memory. 'We thought terrorism would come from outside our country, and we couldn't believe this was a homegrown individual,' said former Oklahoma radio host John Erling, whose 'Erling in the Morning' aired on Tulsa's KRMG from 1976 to 2005. 'The fact that all these people were killed, and that it included babies and children – it was a horrific feeling for all of us.' Anti-government extremists and white supremacists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were quickly apprehended and charged, then eventually tried and convicted of the crime. Both were enraged by federal actions during a 1992 standoff in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the 1993 siege of a religious sect's compound in Waco, Texas, both of which had turned deadly and inflamed far-right fears about federal intrusion on freedoms around guns and religion. McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran who planned the attack and detonated the bomb, intentionally triggered the blast two years to the day that the Waco siege ended with the deaths of 75 Branch Davidian members, seeing the act as part of a war against government oppression. He was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. Nichols, who had helped prepare the device, was sentenced to life in prison. 'It shifted the dialogue about who the threat was and what they believed,' said Amy Cooter, author of 'Nostalgia, Nationalism, and the U.S. Militia Movement.' 'We did have this image of ourselves as being protected from geopolitical violence. It was jarring to see it happen on U.S. soil.' At first, Williamson thought he was dead. He remembered thinking that at least it was quick and he didn't suffer. It seemed he was in a soundless void, 'like outer space.' The haze gradually began to clear. The bank of teller windows was gone altogether. Williamson began to comprehend that much of the building was a gaping hole yawning over a giant crater. He shut down; it was too much to process. 'What happened?' he finally heard someone scream. It was his colleague Bobbi, whose desk was around the corner. More: It's been 30 years since the OKC bombing. Who was responsible, how many were killed? 'That's what snapped me out of it,' Williamson said. Other colleagues began to emerge from the third-floor debris. He remembered one of them remarking that a nearby desk belonged to the Army recruiting office on the fourth floor. Where there should have been a door, a hallway and the northern set of third-floor offices, he said, was now open sky. As Williamson and the others wondered what to do, two other building employees, cut and bleeding, appeared and said the building's south stairwell offered a way out. They made their way down to ground level and eventually around to the side of the blast, where Williamson, numb with shock and missing a shoe, eyed the ruins and wondered what had become of the rest of his co-workers. Cooter was a middle schooler in East Tennessee at the time of the bombing but recalled watching news coverage about the event, as well as Ruby Ridge and Waco. In the days that followed, she remembered how the nation's social fabric suddenly seemed to have been ripped with the attack on America's heartland. As Cooter grew to understand the links between the bombing and the events that came before it, she became interested in more fully understanding the anti-government sentiment she had seen firsthand in her rural community. She's now deputy director and co-founder of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism. 'I remember in the aftermath, people talked about driving down the interstate and seeing a moving truck and wondering if there was something harmful inside,' Cooter said. 'We were worried about each other as potential threats and not seeing each other as neighbors.' More than 40% of Americans after the bombing worried about becoming a victim of terrorism, according to a white paper published in 2021 by the Cato Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. Marita Sturken, a professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, said the bombing was the most visible indication of growing populist forces that would have far-reaching political implications that linger today. 'The roots of much of the polarization in the U.S. can be seen in the 1990s,' Sturken said. 'The anger at government overreach really has its roots in that era. ... It was also the first stages of the deindustrialization of the U.S. economy, so the sense of people being screwed over and left behind economically were very powerful then.' The incident would also usher in a new era of homegrown violence that would gradually color American life. The Oklahoma City bombing would soon be overshadowed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which had followed the massacre at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, in April 1999, the first major mass shooting at a school. 'Kids have to live in fear for their lives,' said Erling, the former radio host. 'We didn't have that before McVeigh. We've lost that innocence.' But from anguish grew hope. The people of Oklahoma united in a powerful and therapeutic way to support survivors of the bombing and, ultimately, to create a memorial to those lost. Intercity rivalries gave way to state pride. 'We were all one,' Erling said. 'There was a big separation between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, but the bond between the two became stronger. The whole world was watching.' More: 30 years after the bombing, OKC is a comeback story like no other Oklahoma businesses and individuals rose to the occasion 'without regard for who got credit for anything,' said Keating, the former governor. 'There was not one act of looting. It was a transformative event.' A downtown revitalization was accelerated after the bombing as the city tapped groundswells of pride and resilience. Among those efforts was the creation of a complex that would not only honor the victims of the blast but seek to unravel the reasons behind it. 'It was remarkable how soon survivors and others were intensely interested in being part of the project,' said Edward Linenthal, author of 'The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory' and a professor emeritus of history at Indiana University Bloomington. 'They needed to learn how to work together and to realize the memorial wasn't really for them − it was for the future.' The resulting memorial and museum – and the civic cooperation that went into their making – are among the bombing's enduring legacies. So, too, is the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, which has grown to become one of the nation's best-known races since launching in 2001. Meanwhile, nearly 200 children of bombing victims pursued college or vocational education with the help of scholarship fund programs, Keating said. 'We were able to take care of everyone who lost one or more parents and wanted to go to college,' Keating said. 'It was the right thing to do.' In 1999, a task force appointed by Oklahoma City Mayor Ron Norick soon after the bombing recommended creation of a monument dedicated to "those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever." The Oklahoma City National Memorial, constructed on the site of the Alfred J. Murrah building, was dedicated on April 19, 2000. Among the site's most notable features are the Field of Empty Chairs, each bearing the name of someone who died; an elm tree that survived the explosion; and a wall bearing the names of those who survived. 'The way in which they organized as a community to build the memorial and the thoughtfulness that went into that is exemplary,' said Sturken, author of several books about American memorialization. 'There's plenty of things one could criticize about how the museum ultimately presented the story, but the way in which that city came together was really powerful.' Understanding and conveying the broader lessons behind mass violence are a harder lift and where such memorials typically fall short, Sturken said. 'It's hard to step back and have a broader discussion about politics,' Sturken said. 'I will give them credit in Oklahoma City; they created a whole institute about issues of security, research and policymaking. They were actually thinking more broadly about having something good come of that process.' The National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, however, which included a training center and terrorism database, ultimately closed in 2014 for lack of funding. Linenthal, who was a member of the Flight 93 Memorial Commission after 9/11, said the community's thoughtfulness and cohesion nonetheless provided a blueprint for memorials that would follow. 'If we are going to memorialize these events and try to combat the toxins of violence through true educational programs and witness testimony, Oklahoma City was a model to begin from,' he said. But Linenthal believes it's important not to mischaracterize the attack or its victims. 'It's far too easy to try to turn these horrific events into just stories of resilience and courage and bravery,' he said. 'There's nothing redemptive about what happened. These people did not consciously give their lives for their country. They were murdered while they were at work.' Williamson said 18 of his co-workers were murdered that day. In a two-week span after the bombing, he went to 12 funerals. The experience became a wake-up call, he said. He left banking to follow the path he really wanted, pursuing a doctorate in German. He now teaches online courses as a professor of ancient and modern languages at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee after a stint at the University of Oklahoma. But the effects lingered. For years afterward, Williamson said, walks down long hallways conjured vivid images of massive explosions and thoughts about where the pieces would fall. Lightning, thunder, flickering lights – he'd find himself gripping the sides of his desk. Thirty years later, he said, those things hardly ever happen anymore. More: Oklahoma City bombing, 30 years later: Our city's stories of strength, healing and hope 'It definitely hits me emotionally and unexpectedly at times,' Williamson said. 'I try not to lose sight of the fact that in so many ways, I was one of the lucky ones.' It occurred to him recently that all but one of his co-workers who died that day were younger than he is now. Williamson doesn't plan to return for this year's ceremonies; milestone numbers are important, he said, but he prefers more intimate memories. He recalled the 11th anniversary, when the group that gathered was so modest they could all fit around the survivor tree at the site. Some years ago, when he still lived in Oklahoma City, he recalled being kept awake one night by noisy neighbors. He found himself driving to the memorial site at 4 a.m. on a rainy night. It was the first and only time he had ever walked into the Field of Chairs alone. Except it was as if he wasn't. At that moment, "I felt really connected to my 18 co-workers," he said. "Like they were symbolically there in the chairs there with me. It was a really special moment." The 30th anniversary of the bombing and the nation's polarization highlight concerns that memories fade and lessons can be forgotten, some say. Erling recalls speaking several years ago to a class of high school freshmen in small-town Oklahoma. He asked students to raise their hands if they had never heard of the bombing. 'Many hands went up,' he said. 'I was shocked. ... Life has moved on.' Linenthal encountered similar experiences as he wound down his college teaching career. 'When I would bring up Oklahoma City, students would often get this quizzical look on their face,' he said. 'Many would say they'd heard of it but didn't know much about it. I realized that for some people this was ancient modern history.' Sturken said that rather than urgency about extremism, the bombing instead illustrated that such forces were just getting started. The villainization of Timothy McVeigh became the narrative rather than serious examination of societal forces prompting his radicalization. 'There was a lot of focus on him as an individual rather than asking how things in society are making people left behind in a way that's fueling anger,' she said. Ken Foote, a professor of geography, sustainability and community and urban studies at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, said that because the U.S. government never formally apologized for either Waco or Ruby Ridge, 'some of the issues raised by these events have not really been addressed.' Messaging about the lingering threat of domestic terrorism has in some respects 'been drowned out by everything that's happened since,' he said. 'The message is still there, but it hasn't taken hold more broadly. There is a need to keep reminding ourselves.' Cooter said one population that hasn't forgotten about the bombing is militia groups themselves. 'It's still very central to their identity and how they navigate their relationship with the government,' she said. She worries federal cuts to national security efforts by President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency indicate monitoring such concerns are no longer a priority. Funding for many national security efforts have been stymied by budget cuts in Washington. 'A few months ago, I would have said the bombing was a key event that spurred us to invest more in understanding domestic terrorism from an academic and law enforcement perspective, trying to do more to stop it before it happens,' Cooter said. 'But the progress we've made, especially after 9/11, has frankly been undone with the removal of federal funding. I'm not sure what that fight is going to look like in the next few years.' Likewise, Linenthal said the anniversary poses larger questions about what society chooses to remember and what it consciously chooses to forget – an increasingly important concern, he said, given DOGE cuts to federal agencies that oversee or fund such historical narratives. 'It's heartbreaking in the most profound sense that the federal government is seeing fit to do away with most grant funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities,' he said. 'That's the kind of insidious forgetfulness that to me is horrific and almost beyond words.' Erling wonders what McVeigh would think about what's happening today. The bombing, for all the death and destruction it caused, "didn't accomplish a darn thing," he said. "If he thought that was oppressive then, the oppressiveness of what's happening is more so now because a lot of people are waking up and thinking, 'When am I going to get my notice?' There's this fear of the government taking their jobs and healthcare away from them. That oppressiveness is going on in a greater way." The memorial, he said, ensures that people will never forget what happened. Though the sense of solidarity that united Oklahomans after the bombing has dissipated, he doesn't doubt that people would rise to the occasion again if needed. "I believe it's within our hearts and souls," he said. "That commonality of kindness still rests in our hearts." This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC bombing 30 years later: Is the memory beginning to fade?
USA Today
17-04-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Oklahoma City bombing 30 years later: Is searing memory starting to fade?
Just after 9 a.m. on April 19, 1995, Jason Williamson was on the phone, helping a customer work out the logistics of a complex cash withdrawal. At 24, his stint as a phone teller at the federal employees credit union in downtown Oklahoma City was his first real job since earning his college business degree. His desk on the third floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building sat to the left of the teller windows serving in-person customers who had come in on a sunny Wednesday morning. As he spoke into the receiver, Williamson briefly noticed the lights flickering before the world suddenly went pitch black and quiet – then, all at once, he was engulfed by a deafening roar and the feeling that he was in free fall, plummeting into the earth. At 9:02 a.m. on that day 30 years ago, a 4,800-pound fertilizer bomb detonated in a Ryder truck parked outside the north entrance of Oklahoma City's federal building. The blast killed 168 people, 19 of them children, and injured nearly 700 more. It destroyed or damaged more than 300 buildings. 'It remains the worst event ever of domestic terrorism in the U.S.,' said former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who was barely a few months into his term at the time. 'And I hope it stays that way." So far, it has. But the event upended Americans' sense of safety, lay bare the rage of anti-government sentiment and galvanized a grieving city determined to help survivors and ensure the memories of the lost lived on. Three decades later, experts say its long-lasting impacts are complicated: From lessons learned about the power of a unified community to those less grasped about the grievances of growing right-wing extremism − all amid concerns the horrific event is slipping from memory. 'We thought terrorism would come from outside our country, and we couldn't believe this was a homegrown individual,' said former Oklahoma radio host John Erling, whose 'Erling in the Morning' aired on Tulsa's KRMG from 1976 to 2005. 'The fact that all these people were killed, and that it included babies and children – it was a horrific feeling for all of us.' Anti-government extremists and white supremacists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were quickly apprehended and charged, then eventually tried and convicted of the crime. Both were enraged by federal actions during a 1992 standoff in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the 1993 siege of a religious sect's compound in Waco, Texas, both of which had turned deadly and inflamed far-right fears about federal intrusion on freedoms around guns and religion. McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran who planned the attack and detonated the bomb, intentionally triggered the blast two years to the day that the Waco siege ended with the deaths of 75 Branch Davidian members, seeing the act as part of a war against government oppression. He was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. Nichols, who had helped prepare the device, was sentenced to life in prison. 'It shifted the dialogue about who the threat was and what they believed,' said Amy Cooter, author of 'Nostalgia, Nationalism, and the U.S. Militia Movement.' 'We did have this image of ourselves as being protected from geopolitical violence. It was jarring to see it happen on U.S. soil.' Making sense of chaos At first, Williamson thought he was dead. He remembered thinking that at least it was quick and he didn't suffer. It seemed he was in a soundless void, 'like outer space.' The haze gradually began to clear. The bank of teller windows was gone altogether. Williamson began to comprehend that much of the building was a gaping hole yawning over a giant crater. He shut down; it was too much to process. 'What happened?' he finally heard someone scream. It was his colleague Bobbi, whose desk was around the corner. 'That's what snapped me out of it,' Williamson said. Other colleagues began to emerge from the third-floor debris. He remembered one of them remarking that a nearby desk belonged to the Army recruiting office on the fourth floor. Where there should have been a door, a hallway and the northern set of third-floor offices, he said, was now open sky. As Williamson and the others wondered what to do, two other building employees, cut and bleeding, appeared and said the building's south stairwell offered a way out. They made their way down to ground level and eventually around to the side of the blast, where Williamson, numb with shock and missing a shoe, eyed the ruins and wondered what had become of the rest of his co-workers. 'We've lost that innocence' Cooter was a middle schooler in East Tennessee at the time of the bombing but recalled watching news coverage about the event, as well as Ruby Ridge and Waco. In the days that followed, she remembered how the nation's social fabric suddenly seemed to have been ripped with the attack on America's heartland. As Cooter grew to understand the links between the bombing and the events that came before it, she became interested in more fully understanding the anti-government sentiment she had seen firsthand in her rural community. She's now deputy director and co-founder of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism. 'I remember in the aftermath, people talked about driving down the interstate and seeing a moving truck and wondering if there was something harmful inside,' Cooter said. 'We were worried about each other as potential threats and not seeing each other as neighbors.' More than 40% of Americans after the bombing worried about becoming a victim of terrorism, according to a white paper published in 2021 by the Cato Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. Marita Sturken, a professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, said the bombing was the most visible indication of growing populist forces that would have far-reaching political implications that linger today. 'The roots of much of the polarization in the U.S. can be seen in the 1990s,' Sturken said. 'The anger at government overreach really has its roots in that era. ... It was also the first stages of the deindustrialization of the U.S. economy, so the sense of people being screwed over and left behind economically were very powerful then.' The incident would also usher in a new era of homegrown violence that would gradually color American life. The Oklahoma City bombing would soon be overshadowed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which had followed the massacre at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, in April 1999, the first major mass shooting at a school. 'Kids have to live in fear for their lives,' said Erling, the former radio host. 'We didn't have that before McVeigh. We've lost that innocence.' But from anguish grew hope. The people of Oklahoma united in a powerful and therapeutic way to support survivors of the bombing and, ultimately, to create a memorial to those lost. Intercity rivalries gave way to state pride. 'We were all one,' Erling said. 'There was a big separation between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, but the bond between the two became stronger. The whole world was watching.' Oklahoma businesses and individuals rose to the occasion 'without regard for who got credit for anything,' said Keating, the former governor. 'There was not one act of looting. It was a transformative event.' A downtown revitalization was accelerated after the bombing as the city tapped groundswells of pride and resilience. Among those efforts was the creation of a complex that would not only honor the victims of the blast but seek to unravel the reasons behind it. 'It was remarkable how soon survivors and others were intensely interested in being part of the project,' said Edward Linenthal, author of 'The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory' and a professor emeritus of history at Indiana University Bloomington. 'They needed to learn how to work together and to realize the memorial wasn't really for them − it was for the future.' How the event resonates today The resulting memorial and museum – and the civic cooperation that went into their making – are among the bombing's enduring legacies. So, too, is the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, which has grown to become one of the nation's best-known races since launching in 2001. Meanwhile, nearly 200 children of bombing victims pursued college or vocational education with the help of scholarship fund programs, Keating said. 'We were able to take care of everyone who lost one or more parents and wanted to go to college,' Keating said. 'It was the right thing to do.' In 1999, a task force appointed by Oklahoma City Mayor Ron Norick soon after the bombing recommended creation of a monument dedicated to "those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever." The Oklahoma City National Memorial, constructed on the site of the Alfred J. Murrah building, was dedicated on April 19, 2000. Among the site's most notable features are the Field of Empty Chairs, each bearing the name of someone who died; an elm tree that survived the explosion; and a wall bearing the names of those who survived. 'The way in which they organized as a community to build the memorial and the thoughtfulness that went into that is exemplary,' said Sturken, author of several books about American memorialization. 'There's plenty of things one could criticize about how the museum ultimately presented the story, but the way in which that city came together was really powerful.' Understanding and conveying the broader lessons behind mass violence are a harder lift and where such memorials typically fall short, Sturken said. 'It's hard to step back and have a broader discussion about politics,' Sturken said. 'I will give them credit in Oklahoma City; they created a whole institute about issues of security, research and policymaking. They were actually thinking more broadly about having something good come of that process.' The National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, however, which included a training center and terrorism database, ultimately closed in 2014 for lack of funding. Linenthal, who was a member of the Flight 93 Memorial Commission after 9/11, said the community's thoughtfulness and cohesion nonetheless provided a blueprint for memorials that would follow. 'If we are going to memorialize these events and try to combat the toxins of violence through true educational programs and witness testimony, Oklahoma City was a model to begin from,' he said. But Linenthal believes it's important not to mischaracterize the attack or its victims. 'It's far too easy to try to turn these horrific events into just stories of resilience and courage and bravery,' he said. 'There's nothing redemptive about what happened. These people did not consciously give their lives for their country. They were murdered while they were at work.' 'I was one of the lucky ones' Williamson said 18 of his co-workers were murdered that day. In a two-week span after the bombing, he went to 12 funerals. The experience became a wake-up call, he said. He left banking to follow the path he really wanted, pursuing a doctorate in German. He now teaches online courses as a professor of ancient and modern languages at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee after a stint at the University of Oklahoma. But the effects lingered. For years afterward, Williamson said, walks down long hallways conjured vivid images of massive explosions and thoughts about where the pieces would fall. Lightning, thunder, flickering lights – he'd find himself gripping the sides of his desk. Thirty years later, he said, those things hardly ever happen anymore. 'It definitely hits me emotionally and unexpectedly at times,' Williamson said. 'I try not to lose sight of the fact that in so many ways, I was one of the lucky ones.' It occurred to him recently that all but one of his co-workers who died that day were younger than he is now. Williamson doesn't plan to return for this year's ceremonies; milestone numbers are important, he said, but he prefers more intimate memories. He recalled the 11 th anniversary, when the group that gathered was so modest they could all fit around the survivor tree at the site. Some years ago, when he still lived in Oklahoma City, he recalled being kept awake one night by noisy neighbors. He found himself driving to the memorial site at 4 a.m. on a rainy night. It was the first and only time he had ever walked into the Field of Chairs alone. Except it was as if he wasn't. At that moment, "I felt really connected to my 18 co-workers," he said. "Like they were symbolically there in the chairs there with me. It was a really special moment." The lessons unlearned The 30 th anniversary of the bombing and the nation's polarization highlight concerns that memories fade and lessons can be forgotten, some say. Erling recalls speaking several years ago to a class of high school freshmen in small-town Oklahoma. He asked students to raise their hands if they had never heard of the bombing. 'Many hands went up,' he said. 'I was shocked. ... Life has moved on.' Linenthal encountered similar experiences as he wound down his college teaching career. 'When I would bring up Oklahoma City, students would often get this quizzical look on their face,' he said. 'Many would say they'd heard of it but didn't know much about it. I realized that for some people this was ancient modern history.' Sturken said that rather than urgency about extremism, the bombing instead illustrated that such forces were just getting started. The villainization of Timothy McVeigh became the narrative rather than serious examination of societal forces prompting his radicalization. 'There was a lot of focus on him as an individual rather than asking how things in society are making people left behind in a way that's fueling anger,' she said. Ken Foote, a professor of geography, sustainability and community and urban studies at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, said that because the U.S. government never formally apologized for either Waco or Ruby Ridge, 'some of the issues raised by these events have not really been addressed.' Messaging about the lingering threat of domestic terrorism has in some respects 'been drowned out by everything that's happened since,' he said. 'The message is still there, but it hasn't taken hold more broadly. There is a need to keep reminding ourselves.' Cooter said one population that hasn't forgotten about the bombing is militia groups themselves. 'It's still very central to their identity and how they navigate their relationship with the government,' she said. She worries federal cuts to national security efforts by President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency indicate monitoring such concerns are no longer a priority. Funding for many national security efforts have been stymied by budget cuts in Washington. 'A few months ago, I would have said the bombing was a key event that spurred us to invest more in understanding domestic terrorism from an academic and law enforcement perspective, trying to do more to stop it before it happens,' Cooter said. 'But the progress we've made, especially after 9/11, has frankly been undone with the removal of federal funding. I'm not sure what that fight is going to look like in the next few years.' Likewise, Linenthal said the anniversary poses larger questions about what society chooses to remember and what it consciously chooses to forget – an increasingly important concern, he said, given DOGE cuts to federal agencies that oversee or fund such historical narratives. 'It's heartbreaking in the most profound sense that the federal government is seeing fit to do away with most grant funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities,' he said. 'That's the kind of insidious forgetfulness that to me is horrific and almost beyond words.' Erling wonders what McVeigh would think about what's happening today. The bombing, for all the death and destruction it caused, "didn't accomplish a darn thing," he said. "If he thought that was oppressive then, the oppressiveness of what's happening is more so now because a lot of people are waking up and thinking, 'When am I going to get my notice?' There's this fear of the government taking their jobs and healthcare away from them. That oppressiveness is going on in a greater way." The memorial, he said, ensures that people will never forget what happened. Though the sense of solidarity that united Oklahomans after the bombing has dissipated, he doesn't doubt that people would rise to the occasion again if needed. "I believe it's within our hearts and souls," he said. "That commonality of kindness still rests in our hearts."
Los Angeles Times
16-04-2025
- Los Angeles Times
The Oklahoma City bombing was 30 years ago. Some survivors worry America didn't learn the lesson
OKLAHOMA CITY — Thirty years after a truck bomb detonated outside a federal building in America's heartland, killing 168 people in the deadliest homegrown attack on U.S. soil, deep scars remain. From a mother who lost her first-born baby, a son who never got to know his father, and a young man so badly injured that he still struggles to breathe, three decades have not healed the wounds from the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. The bombers were two former U.S. Army buddies, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who shared a deep-seated hatred of the federal government fueled by the bloody raid on the Branch Davidian religious sect near Waco, Texas, and a standoff in the mountains of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, that killed a 14-year-old boy, his mother and a federal agent. And while the bombing awakened the nation to the dangers of extremist ideologies, many who suffered directly in the attack still fear anti-government rhetoric in modern politics could also lead to violence. A 30-year anniversary remembrance ceremony is scheduled for Saturday on the grounds of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum. Little Baylee Almon had just celebrated her first birthday the day before her mother, Aren Almon, dropped her off at the America's Kids Daycare inside the Alfred P. Murrah federal building. It was the last time Aren would see her first child alive. The next day, Aren saw a photo on the front page of the local newspaper of Baylee's battered and lifeless body cradled in the arms of an Oklahoma City firefighter. 'I said: 'That's Baylee.' I knew it was her,' Aren Almon said. She called her pediatrician, who confirmed the news. In the hauntingly iconic image, which won the amateur photographer who took it the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography, firefighter Chris Shields came to symbolize all the first responders who descended on the bomb site, while Baylee represented the innocent victims who were lost that day. But for Aren, her daughter was more than a symbol. 'I get that [the photo] made its mark on the world,' Almon said. 'But I also realize that Baylee was a real child. She wasn't just a symbol, and I think that gets left out a lot.' The Oklahoma City firefighter in the photograph was Chris Fields, who had been on the scene for about an hour when a police officer came 'out of nowhere' and handed him Baylee's lifeless body. Fields swept the infant's airway and checked for any signs of life. He found none. He said the photograph was snapped as he waited for a paramedic to find room for the baby in a crowded ambulance. 'I was just looking down at Baylee thinking, 'Wow, somebody's world is getting ready to be turned upside down today,'' Fields recalled. While he tries to focus more on being a grandfather than politics, Fields said he has little doubt an attack motivated by radical political ideology could happen again. 'I don't worry about it, but do I think it could happen again? Without a doubt,' he said. One of the youngest survivors of the bombing was PJ Allen, who was just 18 months old when his grandmother dropped him off at the second-floor daycare. He still bears the scars from his injuries. Allen suffered second- and third-degree burns over more than half his body, a collapsed lung, smoke damage to both lungs, head trauma from falling debris and damage to his vocal cords that still affects the sound of his voice. Now an avionics technician at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Allen said he had to be homeschooled for years and couldn't go out in the sun because of the damage to his skin. Still, there doesn't seem to be any self-pity when he speaks of the impact of the bombing on his life. 'Around this time of year, April, it makes me very appreciative that I wake up every day,' he said. 'I know some people weren't as fortunate.' Austin Allen was 4 years old when his father, Ted L. Allen, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development employee, died in the bombing. He never truly got to know his dad. Although he remembers snippets of riding in his dad's truck and eating Cheerios with him in the morning, most of his memories come from friends and family. 'It's just been little anecdotes, little things like that I've heard about him over the years, that have painted a bigger picture of the man he was,' Allen said. Allen, who now has a 4-year-old of his own, acknowledges he's troubled by the anti-government vein in modern-day politics and wonders where it could lead. 'It's such a similar feeling today, where you have one side versus the other,' he said. 'There is a parallel to 1995 and the political unrest.' Dennis Purifoy, who was an assistant manager in the Social Security office on the ground floor of the building, lost 16 co-workers in the bombing. Another 24 customers who were waiting in the lobby also perished. Although he doesn't remember hearing the explosion, a phenomenon he said he shares with other survivors, he remembers thinking the computer he was working on had exploded. 'That's just one of the weird ways that I found out later our minds work in a situation like that,' he said. Purifoy, now 73 and retired, said the bombing and McVeigh's anti-government motives were a reality check for an innocent nation, something he said he sees in our society today. 'I still think that our country is naive, as the way I was before the bombing, naive about the numbers of people in our country who hold far-right-wing views, very anti-government views,' Purifoy said. 'One thing I say to tell people is 'conspiracy theories can kill,' and we saw it here.' Murphy writes for the Associated Press.
