Americans marked the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on Thursday with solemn ceremonies at the World Trade Center site in New York, at the Pentagon in Virginia and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as well as volunteer-driven service projects across the country.
At the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan, family members and loved ones read the names of the nearly 3,000 victims as moments of silence were observed at the exact times hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center and when the twin towers fell. Vice President J.D. Vance and second lady Usha Vance attended the Ground Zero ceremony.
A separate service at the Pentagon honored the 184 service members and civilians killed there when hijackers steered an airliner into the U.S. military headquarters. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump planned to attend the Pentagon observance before traveling to the Bronx for a baseball game. Near Shanksville, a rural ceremony marked the crash site of Flight 93, where passengers and crew tried to retake a hijacked plane; Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins attended that commemoration.
Many Americans also observed the anniversary through a national day of service. Volunteers participated in food and clothing drives, neighborhood cleanups, blood drives and other community projects. In Manhattan the day before the anniversary, thousands of volunteers prepared meals for people in need. James Lynch, who lost his father, Robert Lynch, in the World Trade Center, said he and his family planned to attend a local ceremony and spend time together later in the day. “It’s one of those things where any kind of grief, I don’t think it ever goes away,” Lynch said. “Finding the joy in that grief, I think, has been a huge part of my growth with this.”
The remembrances came during a period of heightened political tensions and increased security. The anniversary followed the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot while speaking at a college in Utah the day before, prompting additional protective measures at the World Trade Center ceremony, officials said.
The Sept. 11 attacks, carried out by al-Qaida militants, killed 2,977 people, including many financial workers at the World Trade Center and the firefighters and police officers who rushed to the burning buildings. The attacks reshaped U.S. domestic and foreign policy, prompting the global War on Terror and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and related conflicts that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians.
Legal and policy issues linked to the attacks remain unresolved more than two decades later. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a former al-Qaida leader accused of masterminding the plot, was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and has been held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but has not been tried. The Trump administration has discussed bringing the National September 11 Memorial plaza and its underground museum under federal control; the site’s operations are presently overseen by a public charity chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a frequent critic of President Trump.
The federal government has spent billions of dollars on health care and compensation programs for people exposed to the toxic dust that spread through parts of Manhattan after the towers collapsed. More than 140,000 people remain enrolled in monitoring programs designed to identify health conditions possibly linked to hazardous materials from the attacks.
Thursday’s observances aimed to honor victims and first responders while reaffirming commitments to service and remembrance, even as ceremonies were shaped by current political tensions and ongoing debates about how best to preserve the memory and address the long-term consequences of the attacks.