On this the twentieth commemoration of that moment, a tragedy that I have written about each year since it occurred, it is still fresh in my memory as though it just happened. I had just returned from attending the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. I was among 400 delegates from America on a mission to charge the United States with a crime against humanity in the Atlantic Slave trade and to demand an apology and reparations.
A livery got me down to 59th Street and wasn’t allowed to proceed any further. I had to continue my journey on foot, all the while talking on my cell phone with Don Rojas from Baltimore, who told me that the Pentagon was under attack too. I was completely exhausted when I reached Chambers Street where a blockade prevented me getting any closer to the towers. I was there when the second plane blasted into the other tower.