NCJ Number
193379
Date Published
2001
Length
319 pages
Annotation
This book provides an overview of the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
Abstract
The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City sent a city and a country into a tailspin of shock and grief. Over 150 interviews were conducted with survivors, family members, rescuers, and others to assess the reaction to this event. The bombing became part of this Nation’s culture and focused personal fears, vulnerabilities, and unresolved traumas. The intense desire to erect a public memorial in Oklahoma City revealed a dramatic transformation in the way the culture treated sites of mass murder. It also sparked a tremendous variety of popular memorial expression and led to the creation of a distinctive memorial process. A community made up of family members, survivors, rescue workers, and civic-minded individuals learned to work together to build a memorial to the victims of the bombing. The memorial contains 168 chairs, one for each victim, and leaves an open space in which people can walk among the chairs and perhaps leave memorial items. The exhibition reinforces the sense that the memorial was in part protest against the anonymity of mass death. These victims would not be forgotten. The extraordinary bonds of affection and acts of compassion that linked people in the wake of the bombing are illustrated in this book. The creation of the Oklahoma City National Memorial at the bombing site is recounted. Notes, index