Pew Research: 9/11 – What We Remember and What We Must Carry Forward

Twenty-five years later, the memory has not faded. Eighty-three percent of Americans who were alive on September 11, 2001 — and 93% of those who were at least 10 years old that day — say they can still recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.

That kind of collective memory is rare. It binds generations across every divide of politics, geography, and identity. But a new Pew Research Center survey of more than 5,000 adults reminds us that time is quietly shifting the landscape. Ten percent of American adults today were born after 2001. For them, September 11 is not a memory — it is history. And for the majority of that youngest cohort of adults, ages 18 to 24, the first place they ever learned about the attacks was a classroom.

That is not a failure. That is how history moves. It passes from lived experience to taught knowledge, and then into the values and institutions that either hold or don't. What we do with that memory — whether we let it deepen our commitment to democratic governance and human dignity, or allow it to be weaponized by fear — is the work of every generation that comes after.

The attacks of September 11 revealed both the fragility and the resilience of this country. Americans came together across every line that divides us. That impulse — toward unity, toward protection of each other, toward the defense of democratic institutions — is not a relic of 2001. It is exactly what Leading Ladies Vote is fighting to sustain right now.

This week, we remember. And we keep going.

🔗 Read the full Pew Research report: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/09/03/9-11-memories-remain-vivid-in-the-us-25-years-later/