Teacher Recounts Being at Booker with Bush on 9/11

The room was silent. Eerily quiet. In the media room of on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush had just told the school, America and the world that the U.S. was under attack.

Clesha Henry, a fifth-grade teacher at Booker Elementary, remembers the moment very well. She was sitting in the second row of the media room waiting for the President to address the school and members of the media about education.

As Bush walked in from reading “The Pet Goat” to a classroom of 2nd-graders, Henry said the president had a solemn, deliberate look on his face. He then said two planes had run into the Twin Towers.

“I did not sense fear in him as much as I sensed concern,” Henry said. After making a brief speech, Bush was whisked away by Secret Service to board Air Force One to head to Washington. “It was absolutely silent, it was fear, we were afraid,” Henry said. “We couldn’t even soak it all in.”

After that, Henry said she’d never seen a room cleared so quickly. The school went into emergency mode and got students into secure rooms.

By the time Henry got her students back into the classroom, she said, the fear started to spread.

Henry’s “teammate” was third-grade teacher Ronnieque Major-Hundley, who called Henry over to the door. Tears filled Major-Hundley’s eyes. “Oh my God, you have to turn on the news,” she told Henry.

Not wanting to panic and to stay strong for her students, Henry held it together and turned on the TV. The news, she said, just kept showing the second plane hitting the World Trade Center and the plume of smoke. “Over and over and over,” she said.

Panic had almost set in.

Teachers were crying, students were crying and there was a fear by many parents that Booker Elementary was now a target by terrorists because of the president’s visit. Many parents rushed to the school to pick up their children.

“The kids were almost in panic mode,” Henry said. “The saw buildings on fire, teachers crying and parents frantically picking up their children. One of the toughest boys I had in my class was sitting on the floor. He said ‘I’m scared, Ms. Henry, are we going to die?’ "

Henry said she remained calm and assured the boy that he was in the one of the safest places he could be. “His fear was so tangible,” she said.

Those moments of the unknown and fear of her students are what she remembers most from that fateful day, Henry said. Looking back 10 years, the sights and sounds from 9/11 are still raw, still real for her.

“How we saw the first responders, they gave their lives for cause and country. They are patriots,” Henry said. “That’s what sticks with me about 9/11. How many lost their lives and how they we willing to sacrifice for the idea that was America. That’s what I choose to take from 9/11. People tried scare us with their violence, and they did not shake our resolve.”