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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKnow your history: Memorial Day was started by former slaves in 1865 to honor Union Soldiers
KNOW YOUR HISTORY: Memorial Day was started by former slaves on May, 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp. They dug up the bodies and worked for 2 weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. They then held a parade of 10,000 people led by 2,800 Black children where they marched, sang and celebrated.
** The Civil War seems to be more relevant every day that goes by!!
EDIT: to add article with more information
http://thegrio.com/2013/05/27/the-african-american-roots-and-civil-war-origins-of-memorial-day/
A nugget of history that most of us never learned in school
HuffPo gets into more detail about "Decoration Day"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-downs/memorial-day-2012_b_1545507.html?__hstc=223762052.5218346c1223349dbd7d71280ffe2a71.1369719990888.1369719990888.1369719990888.1&__hssc=223762052.4.1369719990888
elleng
(130,908 posts)Just posted it elsewhere on DU.
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)... um have to admit it was news to me. Hope it's accurate, goes to show we can learn something new every day. I always thought it was a star spangled armed forces kind of thing!
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,622 posts)This pivotal bit of history sure got left out.
K&R
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)dear Peggy! It sure was news to me. Make one wonder what other historical roots in our culture get hidden over time.. hmm
REP
(21,691 posts)This event happened. It was not the first observation of what is now called Memorial Day.
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)as to erase certain stories and emphasize others.
There are probably books about this, I'll have to find a good one. Accuracy is important of course but it would be great to find a scholar who has looked at this event from all angles.
REP
(21,691 posts)It used to be Decoration Day and the graves of both sides were decorated. The incident mentioned is a well-known one, but it not the the first time the graves of Civil War soldiers were decorated.
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)and I see that there are other aspects to the story. Still, this one makes an impression.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)In my youth, in the 1950's, it wasn't yet a national holiday, and tended to have Southern/Confederacy overtones. I lived in Upstate New York at the time, for what that's worth.
And it does seem to me as though for several years after a more or less national Memorial Day had been established, some of the Southern (read old Confederacy) states tended to celebrate different days. I'm thinking it was with whatever the act was in the 1970's that moved every possible holiday to a Monday, that Memorial Day really, finally, became a national holiday.
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)Hmm. Naturally the South might have a different take
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)As I recall, just about each state did it on a different day. It was generally the Northern states that tended to do it on the 30th of May, which I'm thinking is the original date as I knew it.
I'm not bothering to do a google search, so anything I have wrong is from lack of research.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)of Memorial Day. Officially, the first Decoration Day, the precursor to Memorial Day, was in 1868 when the Grand Army of the Republic declared a day to put flowers on the graves. Even more officially, Congress declared Waterloo, NY as its birthplace because of a celebration in 1866.
These people above do predate that and there were no doubt other such earlier remembrances. The vaguaries of history, combined with a bit of lingering racism, make many of them invisible.
Here are two somewhat more reliable sites than Huffpo, which, unfortunately, don't mention former slaves:
http://usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html
http://www1.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp