BOSTON — On the 24th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, commitments to teaching about 9/11 rang through the House Chamber as impacted families called on the generations distanced from the events to not become “numb” to continued violence.
Fourteen states require schools to teach the subject of 9/11, but Massachusetts is not one of them, education chair of the Massachusetts 9/11 Fund Pat Bavis said Thursday morning during the fund’s annual commemoration. Bavis’ brother was one of the flight passengers who died during the events of 9/11.
The fund added a new program to its annual State House remembrance this week for high school students and teachers who were not alive when the attacks took place, meant to bring attention to the more than 200 people tied to Massachusetts who died and the two planes that originated out of Boston Logan International Airport.
“We’ve become far too numb to all the violence that surrounds us today. We rush from one breaking news story to the next,” Bavis said. “We hear songs on repeat, hits that are celebrating violence…We watch TV shows, movies where death and destruction are just run of the mill plotlines. Far too easy today, far too many forget the suffering then, forget those suffering now.”
The push to require Massachusetts schools to teach about 9/11 has public support from Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Driscoll for the first time, Bavis added.
“All students should be taught about 9/11 and its aftermath, which is a tragic and important piece of both our state and our nation’s history,” Healey said in a statement. “I’ve instructed [the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] and [the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education] to work together to better incorporate it into school curriculum frameworks.”
Bob Sweeney, president of the Boston Bruins Foundation, spoke about losing his sister-in-law, Madeline “Amy” Sweeney, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston Logan.
Driscoll on Thursday presented a civilian bravery award in Sweeney’s name after Sweeney’s daughter, Anna, gave remarks. The award honors Sweeney’s legacy and the “critical information” she shared during the attacks.
“I stand before you, not only as a child who lost my mother, but as someone privileged to carry on the legacy of a hero. This year, however, I stand before you all for the first time as a mother myself,” Anna Sweeney Rossman reflected.
“A lot can happen in 24 years, but so much can stay frozen in time. Whether intentionally or not, much of my life has been measured in milestones that my mom should have been there for. This year, she would have become a grandmother,” Sweeney Rossman continued. She gave birth to a daughter this year, named Madeline, after her mother.
“I think about the things I know she’d do with me and with her granddaughter, the stories she would tell, the guidance she might give me as a mother,” Sweeney Rossman said. “There are quiet moments that her loss feels very sharp again. I find myself returning to her memory, holding on to the pieces of her I know I still have, and imagining the truly incredible grandmother that I know she would have been.”
Jesse Winocour of Winthrop and Jason Papa of Everett, two Everett Department of Public Works employees, received the 2025 award. The two men saw smoke coming from an apartment building in July 2024, and realizing residents had not evacuated, entered the building and saved 14 people before firefighters arrived.
“In the world of online influencers, these are the real role models,” former state representative and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said of the first responders who worked to save people in the World Trade Center, the flight attendants like Sweeney and the passengers who fought back on Flight 93.
“We will never forget. I feel that in my heart, and I know everyone here does as well. But to deliver on that promise, we have to do more than remembering. I think of our grandchildren — they will only know 9/11 if we tell them, and they will only learn the lessons if we share them,” Walsh said.
“Maybe most of us, we need to teach that feeling of unity we had on 9/11, the days after 9/11 where we all respected each other across the political lines, states and neighborhoods, ages, races — we grieved together and stood together. These days, that feeling of unity can be hard to find,” Walsh said. “Those feelings are needed, and it’s up to us to preserve and share them. The future of our country depends on it.”
At Thursday’s Senate session, Sen. Patrick O’Connor recalled being in 10th grade English class when the principal announced over the loudspeaker that “America was under attack.” He remembered the unease that escalated as the day unfolded, followed by stories of “firefighters and police officers who ran into those buildings as others were running out,” lines at military recruitment offices and blood banks filled with donors.
“You saw that even in our darkest moment, that America’s light for freedom still shined incredibly bright, and we came together as a people,” O’Connor said. “We weren’t defined by our politics or our differences or our disagreements. We were defined at that point in time by our shared humanity.
While 9/11 began with “terror and trauma,” Driscoll said that the families of those who died in the attacks nearly a quarter century ago have shed light on courage and strength in the aftermath.
“And in light of current events, let me also say clearly that violence of any kind, like what we saw yesterday that took Charlie Kirk’s life, has no place in America. On this day, especially, when we remember an attack on the way of our life, we must never accept acts that undermine the democratic ideals that we hold dear,” Driscoll said.
Driscoll’s comments about Kirk, a conservative political figure who was shot Wednesday while speaking on a college campus in Utah, followed a statement posted to social media by Healey that called on “the growth of political violence in our country” to come to a stop.
“When people ask, is the spirit of 1776 still alive in Massachusetts? Are there still people willing to risk everything for a higher cause, for a greater good, for their fellow men and women? Can we still muster that kind of unity? I say, look to the 9/11 community — families, the first responders, the service members. There’s where you’ll find it,” Driscoll continued.
The 9/11 Fund announced Thursday that it partnered with GBH Education to create new classroom resources to help students and teachers learn about the events of 9/11 and Massachusetts’ “often overlooked” role. Bavis said that the materials will be available to more than 17 million students due to their inclusion in the U.S. History Collection on PBS LearningMedia.
In the morning, Healey, Driscoll, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Attorney General Andrea Campbell and family members of those who died in 2001 read more than 200 names out loud on the front steps of the State House. Later in the day, Wu was scheduled to preside over a wreath laying ceremony at the Boston Public Garden’s 9/11 Contemplative Garden.