Over the weekend, Oklahoma City marked the thirtieth anniversary of the worst domestic terrorist attack in American history.
On April 19, 1995, bombs went off at the door of Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown. The attack forever changed the city, state and nation.
A commemoration ceremony at First Church featured speeches from former President Bill Clinton, current and former mayors and governors and other people impacted by the aftermath of the bombing.
Mayor David Holt described a duty that people here have to speak out when things get difficult.
“In addition to the obligation… that we have to the families most directly affected, we also have another related obligation in Oklahoma City, and this obligation is timeless and it will outlive us, and that is the obligation to speak and act against the forces that created the environment for this act of evil, and really for all acts of evil across human history,” Holt said.
After the ceremony, attendees headed to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum across the street.
In the audio postcard, you heard:
- David Holt, Oklahoma City’s current mayor
- Bill Clinton, who was president at the time of the bombing
- Kent Harville, who responded to the attack as a technical investigator with the Oklahoma City Police Department
- Kari Watkins, executive director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum
- Hilary Johnson, whose mother, Rebecca Needham Anderson, died while responding to the bombing
- Jamie Crockett, whose cousin, Airman First Class Lakisha Richardson Levy, died in the bombing
- Pat Kreymborg, whose mother, Ann Kreymborg, and sister, Michelle A. Reeder, died in the bombing
- Carl Corrall, whose uncle, Rick L. Tomlin, died in the bombing
- Stephanie Ellingson, whose sister, Claudette (Duke) Meek, died in the bombing
- Keri Strunk, whose mother, Patricia Ann Nix, died in the bombing
- Dioncé Thomas, whose mother, Charlotte Andrea Lewis Thomas, died in the bombing
- Bettie Lewis, whose daughter, Charlotte Andrea Lewis Thomas, died in the bombing
- Deborah Ferrell-Lynn, whose cousin, Susan Ferrell, died in the bombing
- OKC Mayor David Holt again
- Oklahoma Fire Pipes & Drums
