Before serving as a U.S. Ambassador, Rev. Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook was the first female NYPD Chaplain at Ground Zero. In this essay, she reflects on what 9/11 taught America about faith and humanity.
The Day America Changed
September 11, 2001, began as a beautiful Tuesday in New York City. I had just dropped off my mother, Dorothy, when the news of attacks on the World Trade Center came in. As a New York Police Department (NYPD) Chaplain, I had not yet received orders from Police Headquarters, but I knew I had to move.
I began praying with families of police officers and firefighters I knew in the Bronx. With transportation disrupted, I used my emergency vehicle to shuttle parents and grandparents to pick up children from school. Then, around 10 p.m., I was called to Ground Zero.
By then, first responders had spent the day trying to rescue their brothers and sisters from the fallen towers. They were exhausted yet still searching for survivors. Amid the devastation, we formed a circle: firefighters, medical personnel, police officers, people of different races and religions, and me, a Black woman, pastor and NYPD Chaplain. We prayed together.
I will never forget that circle. In that moment, race and religion did not matter. We were one city and one nation experiencing loss as we never had before. Faith was triumphing over tragedy.
Twenty-five years later, America needs to remember what we knew in that circle. We must find our way back to being the United States, not the divided states, of America.
The Day Race Didn’t Matter
Years ago, I described September 11 as “The Day Race Didn’t Matter.” I did not mean race disappeared. I knew I was a Black woman at Ground Zero and understood the history I carried as the first female NYPD Chaplain. What I witnessed was our shared humanity becoming more visible than our differences.
For weeks, I prayed with police officers and firefighters, responded to 9-1-1 operators traumatized by hearing people perish on the other end of the telephone, and ministered to church members who had come frighteningly close to death. Eventually, rescue became recovery. Families were identifying remains, and I was sitting in funerals every day, helping families bury first responders who had run toward danger when everyone else was trying to get out.
After six weeks, 42 days of carrying so much grief, I remember pulling my car over and crying. One question became impossible to ignore: Who is there for the person who is caring for everybody else?
That question helped deepen what I call soul care. Those who care for others also need care. A soul does not have a race, ethnicity or gender. It is the sacred place within us that needs hope, healing and renewal so we can continue showing up for others.
Black Women Have Always Shown Up
I was the Black woman NYPD Chaplain at Ground Zero, and I was part of a much longer tradition. Black women of faith have always shown up when America is hurting. We have prayed, organized, taught, marched, mothered, ministered and built bridges, often without recognition.
I saw that tradition in my mother, Dorothy C. Johnson. She knew oppression and poverty growing up in the fields of Monroe, North Carolina. Yet, like Harriet Tubman returning for others, my mother went back to teach field workers so they could further their education. That same spirit carried me to Ground Zero.
I have seen it in Muslim and Christian women in Liberia who came together across religious lines in pursuit of peace, in the legacy of Coretta Scott King, and in countless Black women whose names may never appear in history books, yet whose faith holds families and communities together.
Black women are still on the front lines of faith. It is why I have spent the past six years pouring into Black women ministers, connecting established and emerging leaders with mentorship, resources and opportunities. As that work culminates this October, I’m reminded that women who spend their lives caring for others also need to be seen and supported. Black women have helped America heal before. We can help America heal again.
When New Yorkers Needed Soul Care
The Wednesday after 9/11, New Yorkers were being asked to return to work. I hosted a lunchtime worship service just a few doors from the World Trade Center. People of different races and backgrounds came in carrying fear. They needed a place where their souls could be soothed and their hope renewed.
Scripture speaks of people encountering Jesus and leaving “a different way” than they came. That is what I witnessed. They came in afraid and left a different way. It reinforced what I had seen at Ground Zero: faith and soul care are universal.
After 9/11, I carried that lesson forward by forming the Partnership of Faith, bringing rabbis, imams, clerics and other faith leaders together. We exchanged pulpits, gathered at social and sacred events and learned each other’s cultural norms. We chose to build bridges instead of allowing our differences to separate us.
From Ground Zero to Global Diplomacy
That work eventually became part of a larger calling. In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed me United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. I went from ministering at Ground Zero to serving on the global stage, with 199 countries in my portfolio and a responsibility to advocate for people’s freedom to practice their faith.
The geography changed, but the principle did not. Both assignments required what I call frontline faith: the willingness to show up when people are divided, afraid, hurting or under threat.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, America feels unsteady again. There is war abroad and division at home, and too much of our national conversation focuses on what separates us rather than what can bring us together.
I know another way is possible because I witnessed it in the prayer circle at Ground Zero, in frightened New Yorkers finding peace together, in faith leaders entering one another’s sacred spaces, and in Black women stepping forward to heal and hold communities together.
Perhaps it begins closer to home. What if women formed circles in our living rooms and dining rooms and invited women whose backgrounds, faiths or experiences differed from our own? What if we prayed, listened and learned from each other before going back out into a divided world?
Twenty-five years ago, I watched a circle form amid the devastation of Ground Zero. People needed hope, and we showed up for one another.
America does not need another Ground Zero to rediscover that spirit. We can choose common ground over dissension, faith over fear, unity over division and hope over despair.
I still believe in the healing power of Black women, the power of faith to build bridges and our capacity to become one nation again.
The world has been waiting for us.
Rev. Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook, known as “America’s Chaplain,” is the first female NYPD Chaplain, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom appointed by President Barack Obama, global faith leader and author of 17 books. In October 2026, she culminates a six-year initiative supporting Black women in ministry with a conference in Harlem and the launch of Seasoned Salt and her documentary, Silent No More. Learn more about her work here.
