2. ILLUSTRATION BY Mike Luckevich The Atlanta Constitution

4. Text From We'll go forward from this moment BY LEONARD PITTS JR. The Miami Herald Wednesday, September 12, 2001

5. It’s my job to have something to say. They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. PRESENTATION BY ED MILLER

6. But in this moment of airless shock

7. when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes,

8. the only thing I can find to say,

9. the only words that seem to fit,

10. must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

11. You monster.

12. You beast.

13. You unspeakable bastard.

14. What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward’s attack on our World Trade Center,

15. our Pentagon,

16. us?

17. What was it you hoped we would learn? PRESENTATION BY ED MILLER

18. Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

19. Did you want us to respect your cause?

20. You just damned your cause.

21. Did you want to make us fear?

22. You just steeled our resolve.

23. Did you want to tear us apart?

24. You just brought us together.

25. Let me tell you about my people.

26. We are a vast and quarrelsome family,

27. a family rent by racial, social, political and class division,

28. but a family nonetheless.

29. peace-loving and compassionate. We are fundamentally decent . . .

30. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it.

31. believers in a just and loving God. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith . . .

32. Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak.

33. You’re mistaken. We are not weak.

34. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.

35. We are in mourning and we are in shock. Yes, we’re in pain now. . .

36. We’re still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did.

37. and the probable final death toll, Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition . . .

38. in the history of the United States, and, probably, the world. your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism . . .

39. You’ve bloodied us like we have never been bloodied before.

40. But there is a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall.

41. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard,

42. the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain.

43. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force.

44. We will bear any suffering, When provoked by this level of barbarism . . .

45. go to any length, pay any cost . . .

46. in the pursuit of justice.

47. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. I tell you this without fear of contradiction. . .

48. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future. What I know reassures me. . .

49. We’ll go forward from this moment . . . sobered, chastened, sad.

50. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

51. as Americans we will mourn, As Americans we will weep . . .

52. and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

53. So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us?

54. It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred.

55. If that’s the case, consider the message received.

56. And take this message in exchange:

57. You don’t know my people.

58. You don’t know what we’re capable of.

59. You don’t know what you just started.

60. But you’re about to learn.