Memorial Day was started by former slaves

[Lakhota]

According to Professor David Blight of Yale University, the first Memorial Day took place on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC, after a group of African-Americans, mostly former slaves, gave 257 Union soldiers a proper burial. The black community in Charleston then consecrated the new cemetary with “an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people,” led by 3,000 black school children. It was initially called “Decoration Day.”

Memorial Day was started by former slaves | ThinkProgress

Memorial Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ClosedCaption]

Why are you being divisive? /s

 

[whitehall]

They did was a nice thing but where does the decoration come in? Lincoln's Gettysburg Address consecrated the hallowed ground two years before in 1863.

 

[Mad Scientist]

According to Professor David Blight of Yale University, the first Memorial Day took place on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC, after a group of African-Americans, mostly former slaves, gave 257 Union soldiers a proper burial. The black community in Charleston then consecrated the new cemetary with “an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people,” led by 3,000 black school children. It was initially called “Decoration Day.”

Memorial Day was started by former slaves | ThinkProgress

Memorial Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thanks! I heard this today on the radio but no explanation of why it was.

 

[daveman]

Sooo...we're supposed to oppose Memorial Day now, huh, Lakhota?

You're going to be disappointed.

 

[Lakhota]

Sooo...we're supposed to oppose Memorial Day now, huh, Lakhota?

You're going to be disappointed.

Wow, that's a stupid deduction. Actually, the fact that grateful slaves started it should make it even more special.

 

[daveman]

Sooo...we're supposed to oppose Memorial Day now, huh, Lakhota?

You're going to be disappointed.

Wow, that's a stupid deduction. Actually, the fact that grateful slaves started it should make it even more special.

If you didn't have a political point to make, you wouldn't have put this thread in Politics.

 

[hortysir]

Were they freed slaves?

 

[Lakhota]

Were they freed slaves?

I believe that's why the thread title refers to them as "former" slaves.

 

[buckeye45_73]

Sooo...we're supposed to oppose Memorial Day now, huh, Lakhota?

You're going to be disappointed.

Wow, that's a stupid deduction. Actually, the fact that grateful slaves started it should make it even more special.

yeah nothing wrong with Memorial Day, thanks for liking wikipedia for us. It was very helpful, Can you link July 4th when it rolls around.

 

[hortysir]

Were they freed slaves?

I believe that's why the thread title refers to them as "former" slaves.

That's because it was in South Carolina.

Had the same thing had happened in 1865 Massachusetts the word "former" would not have applied.


(ask Grant, he'll get the joke)

 

[tinydancer]

According to Professor David Blight of Yale University, the first Memorial Day took place on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC, after a group of African-Americans, mostly former slaves, gave 257 Union soldiers a proper burial. The black community in Charleston then consecrated the new cemetary with “an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people,” led by 3,000 black school children. It was initially called “Decoration Day.”

Memorial Day was started by former slaves | ThinkProgress

Memorial Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's interesting. I found this website fascinating as well. It appears many want to lay claim to the "beginnings".

Weird note that LBJ declared that Waterloo, NY was the birthplace of Memorial Day.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states.

The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war).

It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

Memorial Day History

 

[Stukaman]

Thank you Tinydancer for the accurate info, I know many Civil War reenacters, some in Waterloo, who take the holiday very seriously. To them it is very important to keep the history of those magnificent heros alive and correct.

The Stukaman

 

[Sarah G]

Sooo...we're supposed to oppose Memorial Day now, huh, Lakhota?

You're going to be disappointed.

Wow, that's a stupid deduction. Actually, the fact that grateful slaves started it should make it even more special.

It's already been established that Daveman's deductions are usually pretty stupid.

 

[tjvh]

Memorial Day's provenance sure beats that of Ira Einhorn's Earth Day.

 

[NoNukes]

Sooo...we're supposed to oppose Memorial Day now, huh, Lakhota?

You're going to be disappointed.

You would oppose Memorial Day because it was started by Blacks?

 

[MeBelle]

According to Professor David Blight of Yale University, the first Memorial Day took place on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC, after a group of African-Americans, mostly former slaves, gave 257 Union soldiers a proper burial. The black community in Charleston then consecrated the new cemetary with “an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people,” led by 3,000 black school children. It was initially called “Decoration Day.”

One of the remarkable things about Memorial Day, said David W. Blight, a professor of history at Yale University, was how it arose in the aftermath of the country’s most savage years, and at the initiation of war widows, former slaves and grateful citizens of vastly divergent political views and even conceptions of what was being commemorated


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/us/many-claim-to-be-memorial-day-birthplace.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

Apparently, either the professor contradicts himself, or vital addition facts were left out of the original OP link.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Were they freed slaves?

I believe that's why the thread title refers to them as "former" slaves.

That's because it was in South Carolina.

Had the same thing had happened in 1865 Massachusetts the word "former" would not have applied.


(ask Grant, he'll get the joke)

Grant had a slave of his own didn't he?

 

[California Girl]

And this is political? How exactly?

I find it very odd that people are so desperate to make a national commemoration into some kind of partisan or race baiting bullshit. There are plenty of issues to create division and faux outrage about... how about we respect our war dead enough to leave them the fuck out of political bullshit and race baiting crap?

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Sooo...we're supposed to oppose Memorial Day now, huh, Lakhota?

You're going to be disappointed.

You would oppose Memorial Day because it was started by Blacks?

No one know who first stared Memorial Day
There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day.

Would you be pissed off to find out Memorial Day was a day the southern dead were honored?

There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead" (Source: Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920).

And

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html