LOWER MANHATTAN — A middle school choir from North Carolina visiting the 9/11 Memorial was stopped from singing the national anthem on the plaza last week by a security guard.
A group of about 50 students from Waynesville Middle School were shut down by a security guard just moments after they began their rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" on the open plaza where the memorial pools in the footprints of the destroyed Twin Towers now sit, one of their teachers, Martha Brown, told the Associated Press Monday.
Brown said one guard initially told them it was fine, but a different guard quickly stopped the singing when it they started.
“You just can’t do this; you’ve got to stop now,” Brown told the AP the guard said to them. “So we very reverently and quietly stopped what we were doing and complied with his request and quietly exited the park.”
News of the song shutdown spread after an upset parent posted a video to Facebook that went viral — with 544,167 views since it was uploaded after the incident on April 20. The mom, Connie Shepherd Scanlon wrote on the post: "They stopped them half the way thru. You can't sing the National Anthem. So sad this is happening everywhere. They sounded great. God Bless America!"
The 9/11 Memorial has since said the whole thing was mishandled, and that it has reached out to the school to "express our regret" — and invited them back to sing.
"The guard did not respond appropriately," the 9/11 Memorial and Museum said in a statement. "We are working with our security staff to ensure that this will not happen again."
The guard, however, seemed to just be following memorial plaza protocol too strictly — those wishing to perform on the plaza are supposed to pay $35 for a permit and must follow a list of guidelines.
The student's teacher, Martha Brown, told the AP that they've turned their disappointment into a learning experience. “We turned it into a teaching moment and taught them that even if you don’t agree with it, or understand it, you must respect authority,” she said.
