Michael Strahan’s “9/11: United We Stand” Airs Tonight on ABC
- PowerPage Staff
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
Michael Strahan’s “9/11: United We Stand” airs tonight with a specific question at its center: after the attacks of September 11, 2001, how did sports and entertainment help people begin returning to public life? The two-hour ABC News Studios special premieres Tuesday, September 1, at 9 p.m. ET.
The program is not framed as another minute-by-minute reconstruction of the attacks. Instead, it looks at how baseball, football, music, Broadway and comedy became places where grief, resilience and a fragile sense of normalcy could exist together in the weeks and months that followed.
Strahan leads a group of athletes, entertainers and journalists reflecting on that period. ABC’s confirmed participants include Derek Jeter, Pete Davidson, Jon Bon Jovi, Jon Stewart, Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Billy Crystal, Matthew Broderick, Jimmy Fallon, Mark Messier and former New York Giants receiver Victor Cruz.
That guest list gives the special several ways into the same history. Some participants performed or competed while the country was still processing the attacks. Others lost family members, covered the aftermath or helped create the televised moments through which millions of people experienced the return of familiar routines.
Strahan has described football’s return as something that initially seemed unimportant but later became a way for people to gather and support one another. The documentary uses that tension—between the enormity of loss and the ordinary rituals people needed—to explain why games and performances carried unusual emotional weight.
ABC will air the premiere from 9 to 11 p.m. ET. The special streams the following day on Disney+ and Hulu. An encore simulcast is scheduled for Friday, September 11, across ABC, ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu, giving viewers another verified option around the anniversary itself.
Watch the official trailer below. For another scripted streaming arrival this week, PowerPage’s preview of “The Gentlemen” Season 2 covers its September 3 return. “United We Stand” serves a different purpose: it asks what culture could offer when a country was trying to move again without pretending the loss had passed.
Watch: “9/11: United We Stand — 25 Years Later” official ABC trailer
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