The role of African Americans in Memorial Day's birth: Uncovering the contested origins
Memorial Day honours fallen soldiers from the Civil War. A contested version says African Americans in Charleston organized a commemoration in 1865.
Memorial Day, a day when Americans across the nation pay tribute to veterans from all wars, finds its origins in the deadliest conflict in the country's history: the Civil War. Approximately 6,20,000 soldiers succumbed during this war, and efforts to honour them began soon after their demise. However, the origins of the holiday are steeped in debate and controversy. Historically, several towns have laid claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day.
The Overlooked Narrative: African Americans' Contribution
Another narrative, often overshadowed, suggests that the tradition was birthed by African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina a year earlier in 1865. David Blight, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of "Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory," recounts a commemoration that occurred on 1 May 1865, in Charleston, organised by freed slaves and white missionaries. This gathering was held at a former racecourse where Confederate captors held Union soldiers during the last year of the war. At least 257 prisoners had died there, many from disease, and were interred in unmarked graves. In the run-up to the event, approximately two dozen African American residents of Charleston rearranged the graves into rows and constructed a three-metre-tall white fence around them, thereby creating a memorial christened 'Martyrs of the Race Course'.
'The First Memorial Day Celebration'
The event attracted an estimated 10,000 people, primarily black residents, who partook in a tribute encompassing parades, songs, sermons, and speeches by Union officers, missionaries, and black ministers. The gravesites transformed into a 'sea of flowers,' and the New York Tribune depicted the tribute as 'a procession of friends and mourners such as South Carolina and the United States had never witnessed before'.
'Suppression of the African American Origin Story'
Despite these documented events, the narrative of African Americans founding Memorial Day largely remained untold, with David Blight asserting that this origin story was not the version many white individuals preferred to convey.
General John A. Logan and the Widespread Acceptance of Memorial Day
The origin story that gained widespread acceptance involves General John A. Logan, president of a Union Army veterans group, who in 1868 encouraged Americans to adorn the graves of the fallen with flowers on May 30. The ceremony that took place in Arlington National Cemetery on that day is frequently regarded as the first official Memorial Day celebration. Memorial Day was declared a national holiday in 1889 and was later shifted in 1968 to the last Monday of May, where it is still observed today
