Do you remember the Oklahoma City bombing? The photo above shows some of the destruction, including sobering displays of what those everyday government offices looked like after the explosion, their metal blinds unflowered and blasted computer monitors staring blankly.
From the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum website:
“On the morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a rental truck with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building [in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma] and at 9:02am, a massive explosion occurred which sheared the entire north side of the building, killing 168 people.”
I couldn’t imagine many more depressing things to do than visit a museum that details such death and disaster, but I was wrong.
It is truly an uplifting experience to visit the site, and a reminder of our fundamental human goodness and resilience in the face of twisted evil. Those who are building the new National September 11 Memorial and Museum drew lessons and guidelines from the superb work done in Oklahoma City.
One of the ways that the museum most effectively conveys horror is by showcasing the ordinary lives that were suddenly and forever altered that day.
All of the sets of car keys in the photo above, with their widely varying styles of personalized keyrings, had owners. Who created the elaborate blue and black bead keyholder? Did a child of one of the victims make it, perhaps at a camp craft workshop or in school art class? We’ll never know.
Part of the museum experience is listening to a recording made that day; a bureaucratic government proceeding on some dry topic that is suddenly cut short at 9:02 a.m. by the sound of a massive explosion. It’s such a jolt to go from normalcy to insanity.
Those who died each have a designated empty chair in the museum’s outdoor memorial, as you can see in the Museum’s photo above. The chairs are lined up next to a reflecting pool; it’s very well-designed and effective.
There are a lot of interesting things going on in Oklahoma City, from the spectacular American Indian Cultural Center and Museum to Bricktown to the small but jaw-dropping Banjo Museum, plus – ahem – the Oklahoma City Thunder in pro basketball, but if you visit OKC, please do not miss the chance to see how the city turned tragedy into a world-class learning and reflective experience.
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I’m a native of Oklahoma, and I was only 5 when the bombing happened, but, surprisingly, I still remember that day well (I think it was seared into my brain by all the news coverage it got for the next few years during the trials). Since the memorial and museum were built, I’ve visited about five times, and every time has been a blessing. You enter the memorial and see the chairs and the reflecting pool, and it makes you a little sad, but then you see the survivor tree and go through the museum, and the general goodness and tenacity of people displayed throughout the museum gives you an overwhelming sense of hope and unity. I just went again a few months ago, and I was reminded of a lot the details I had forgotten, and that’s why it has become such an important fixture in OKC. It serves as a reminder to everyone that we’re all connected, and that as a community, we can come together, even in the face of utter devastation, to give each other hope. Not only that, but people from all over Oklahoma, the U.S. and across the globe simply served one another in a time of crisis, which is very uplifting. The memorial and museum are true blessings, and I hope that NYC can create something similar to help them heal, but also move forward with renewed hope and spirit.
Thank you so much, Taylor, for your heartfelt comment and for giving us some more background on the Museum as a fixture of the OKC community.