In spite of a number of people and locations who seek to take the credit, the first Memorial Day was held by former slaves in Charleston, South Carolina. During the Civil War, Union Army soldiers who were prisoners of war were held at the Charleston Race Course. It is reported that at least 257 Union prisoners died there and were quickly buried in unmarked graves. The bodies had been buried under the bleachers of the race track. After the war, a group of black workmen dug up the bodies and reburied them to properly honor the fallen.
On May 1, 1865, over 10,000 people — recently freed slaves, black schoolchildren, colored soldiers and their allies – held what was the first Memorial Day parade.
“They paraded around the racetrack, and then they gathered as many as could fit into the cemetery compound. About three or four black preachers read from script,” said David Blight, a professor of history at Yale University and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery. His research is responsible for bringing this little known history to light. It was observed by the historian that the white South controlled much of the nation’s narrative, which explains why this heroic story was practically erased.
At the May 1, 1865 celebration, it is reported that three thousand black children carried roses and sang “John Brown’s Body,” a tribute to the “fervent abolitionist.” It is reported that they also sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and that Black women followed with flowers, wreaths, and crosses. Black men and Union soldiers followed behind them. By the end of the procession the graves were covered in rose petals.
It is suggested that the ex-slaves were paying tribute to the dead who gave their lives for the ex-slaves’ freedom. Writing in the New York Times, Blight, the historian, wrote of the ex-slaves, “by their labor, their words, their songs, and their solemn parade on their former owner’s racetrack, black Charlestonians created the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution.”
It has been suggested that the African American origins of the holiday were later suppressed by white Southerners who regained power in the South after the end of Reconstruction, and then claimed Memorial Day as a holiday of reconciliation for white Americans.
In the North, General John A. Logan proclaimed the day “Decoration Day” as a nationwide observance. He used his position to make a tradition which had started in the south three years earlier by some freed African Americans to start a process that led to the name “Memorial Day,” first used in 1882. “Memorial Day” was not declared the official name of the holiday until a Federal law was passed in 1967. A year later, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act which created a three-day holiday which has evolved into a national time to honor fallen soldiers.
Writers and scholars, among them David Blight and Hurston/Wright Foundation fellow, Victoria Massie, are all to be given credit for their research and writings that help to keep our history alive in spite of organized efforts to erase it.
