One year after the violent attack on Capitol Hill by a mob seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, many House lawmakers are still struggling to wrap their heads around the brutality of that day.
ABC News reporters reflect on the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and the lasting impact on our country.
ABC News sat down for an in-depth interview with several House Democrats who were in the gallery of the House chamber last year on January 6, 2021. They experienced firsthand the terror as rioters attempted to breach the chamber. On Jan. 6, ABC News Live will provide all-day coverage of events marking one year since the attack on the U.S. Capitol and the continuing fallout for American democracy.People are seen in the House gallery wearing emergency gas masks as rioters try to break into the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.
"When we prayed, that made me feel back to the word: faith. Like all in that balcony, in that gallery, I could just feel every ancestor. I could feel slavery, Jim Crow, everything, all of the bad things that have to wake you up to what the reality is," Blunt Rochester said. "I think about it all the time. And every time I get an alert on my phone … I feel my heart starting to race a little bit more, more anxiety. I haven’t gone back to the gallery since that day. I haven’t. That night they told us to go back to the same place that we had been, and I was like, I'm not going back," Jayapal said.The Washington Post via Getty Images, FILEThe group of Democrats together in the gallery that day by chance, now bonded forever by the trauma.
Lawmakers have said one of the most challenging aspects of their jobs following the riot is figuring out a way to work with some of their Republican colleagues who voted to overturn the presidential election results and downplay the violence and terror of that day. In 2021, the Congressional Office of Employee Assistance handled 12,200 interactions with employees, managers, and members of the Hill - including 5,600 counseling sessions.
"I personally haven't gone through anything as traumatic as that – that has been my most traumatic experience," Leah Han, who works in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, told ABC News in an interview.
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