This Black Woman Gave Back To NYC After Surviving 9/11 And In 1993

September 11 will unfortunately always bring memories of sadness for the thousands of lives lost in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers in NYC 25 years ago today. However, many survivors used their harrowing experiences to help rebuild the city over the years and better the community as a whole.

One of those inspiring souls is Lolita Jackson, a Black woman who narrowly escaped the South Tower merely minutes before it collapsed. It would be her second near-fatal experience as an employee of the building after also surviving the previous WTC bombing in 1993 that claimed six lives and injured hundreds.

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In the attack that occurred shortly after noon on February 26, 1993, an explosion formed a crater that spanned nearly 100 feet deep and extended many stories high. An upward flow of smoke and fire caused inhabitants high and low to suffer intense black clouds that made it near-impossible to breathe. On top of a building-wide blackout and 50,000 people who needed to evacuate, the bombing itself was only the beginning of a living nightmare that for many lasted hours. Jackson, who at the time was only a year in as an employee in the South Tower for investment bank Morgan Stanley, would make her way down from the 72nd floor by way a pitch black and smoke-filled staircase.

“I’m a living testament that it can happen to you, and it can happen to you twice,” she told PBS back in 2023 in commemoration of its 30th anniversary, and her testimony rings true in the worst way. Just eight years later she would be faced to do it all over, only this time with much more fatal results and no building to return to.

She summarized her inspiring story in a video for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, seen below:

Her accomplishment after leaving Morgan Stanley in 2003 and working within the New York City Mayor’s Office for 15 years under Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio, respectively, proved to be substantial. She became one of the primarily figures in helping to shape the still-ongoing OneNYC initiative for rebuilding after a crisis in the wake of natural destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. She relied heavily on her real-life upbringing of growing up on public assistance to empathize with those who lost everything and were struggling to rebound. The gift of passing on useful knowledge is based on lesson learned from 1993 that she credits with saving her life on 9/11.

“After we went through the bombing in 1993, Morgan Stanley was the largest tenant of the World Trade Center complex,” she explained during a 2016 TEDx Talk (seen above), going on to add, “We actually gave them a lot of feedback; they rerouted all of the evacuation routes and they also changed the way we got out of the buildings. The stairs then were lighted with emergency lighting, they also painted with reflective paint, we had much more frequent fire drills and the like.” She further described how these small-yet-effective changes saved lives on September 11, 2001, particularly given the lack of time they all had to escape this time around. In closing her conversation, Jackson states, “My building was hit at 9:03 and it fell at 9:59, so had I not been given that chance to have those changes made, I wouldn’t be standing here talking with you today.”

As we take the day to remember the ones we lost on 9/11, we also celebrate the strength and resilience of individuals like Lolita Jackson who didn’t let one of the worst days in American history define their life stories. In fact, Jackson herself has even embarked on a career as a jazz musician. She’s credited as a trustee of the Jazz Museum in Harlem and has performed on four continents, notably at the prestigious Carnegie Hall.

We all can learn from her determination to achieve greatness no matter how many times you face adversity.