At Alexandria’s 9/11 Remembrance, Mayor Gaskins Asks City to Carry the Light Forward
ALEXANDRIA, VA — Two days before Alexandria gathered to mark the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, Mayor Alyia Gaskins was in New York City when a familiar sight stopped her in her tracks: two blue beams of light rising into the night sky from the site of the former Twin Towers.
“I’d never seen something so powerful and so strong [that was], at the same time, something so peaceful and beautiful,” Gaskins told the crowd gathered outside Alexandria Police Headquarters on Friday morning.
In a city full of lights, noise and movement, she said, the memorial’s twin beams brought stillness—and a childhood song to mind: “This Little Light of Mine.”
That image became the heart of Gaskins’ remarks at Alexandria’s annual September 11 Remembrance Ceremony, held outside Police Headquarters at 3600 Wheeler Ave. The City’s public-safety leaders, elected officials, veterans and residents came together to remember those killed, injured and forever affected by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as well as the first responders who risked or gave their lives helping others.
“Light has the ability to remind us that in such sorrow, in paralyzing grief, in moments that we don’t quite understand, that there is something much greater,” Gaskins said. “There is hope. There is courage. There is compassion. There is unity.”
A Ceremony of Remembrance
The Joint Public Safety Honor Guard presented the colors as the program opened. Alex Parchment performed the national anthem, followed by an invocation from Dr. Taft Quincey Heatley of Shiloh Baptist Church and a poetry recitation by Alexandria Poet Laureate Cristi Donoso.
Deputy Chief Garrett Dyer of the Alexandria Fire Department, Police Chief Tarrick McGuire and Sheriff Sean Casey each offered remarks. The program also included a Return to Quarters Ceremony by the Joint Public Safety Honor Guard and a moment of silence led by Alexandria Police Department representative Tracy Walker, who served as master of ceremonies.
McGuire recalled being in his college apartment at Oklahoma State University when he turned on the television that morning, like millions of other Americans. He said he sometimes feels guilty that his mind goes first to New York City when he thinks of 9/11, rather than also to Arlington County, where the Pentagon was attacked, and Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 crashed after passengers fought back.
“There were so many people whose lives were impacted that day and can’t be the same,” McGuire said. “There were so many people that died on that day and died in the future years to come that never went back home to their families.”
That, he said, is why people in Alexandria and across the country continue to gather each year: to recognize those who never returned home.
The ceremony was part of a longstanding City tradition of pausing each Sept. 11 to honor not only the nearly 3,000 people killed in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, but also the survivors, families, military members and first responders whose lives were changed by the attacks.
Gaskins noted that nearly one-third of Americans were born after Sept. 11 and did not experience the shock and grief of that day firsthand.
“That is our duty,” she said. “Today, on this 25th anniversary, we have a duty to continue to carry their lights forward. We have to keep telling their stories and honoring their memories and their visions and their hopes and their dreams.”
Finding Hope After Loss
The Mayor also recalled hearing former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speak about rebuilding after 9/11 and his belief that the arts belonged at the rebuilt World Trade Center site. Art, she said, can inspire people, unite them and serve as “a light in our darkest times.”
The message resonated at a ceremony that balanced formal tribute with the quiet personal weight of a day that remains vivid to many Alexandrians—particularly those who remember seeing smoke rise from the nearby Pentagon or who responded to the region’s emergency needs.
Gaskins closed by urging those present to keep standing beside one another and to choose hope over hatred.
“Together, our lights will be a reminder that out of this tragedy we not only remember,” she said, “but we also carry forward a hope, a courage, a compassion and a light that cannot be shaken.”
