Oklahoma City bombing remembered 20 years later
On Sunday, hundreds gathered at the Oklahoma City National Memorial to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1995 bombing that killed 168 people, including 19 children, at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
The memorial stands on the former site of the federal building. Survivors, relatives of the victims, and state and federal government officials attended the ceremony, which included 168 seconds of silence and the reading of the names of the deceased. President Bill Clinton was at the annual memorial for the sixth time, and expressed his thanks to those who "turned away all of the petty squabbles in which we engage, leaving only our basic humanity" in the aftermath of the bombing.
"There's still people who somehow think they can matter more and they can make a statement by killing innocents and snuffing our possibility," he said. "They're wrong. As long as people like you make the right decisions with their mind and their heart." His sentiments were echoed by Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, who said it was a day to mourn and remember the people who died, but also a time to "say to those who plan to terrorize us, 'no you cannot.'" Watch some of Clinton's speech below. —Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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