Unheard Stories : Memorial Day was started by freed slaves

Memorial Day is a day to commemorate those who have served in our armed forces and for their dedication.

Union General John Logan is often credited for founding Memorial Day. The commander-in-chief of the Veteran’s organization entitled “Grand Army of The Republic” issued a decree establishing a day that would be called “Decoration Day” on May 5th, 1868.

But a crucial part of its history has been erased.

Memorial Day and freed slaves

On May 1st, 1865 former Black slaves started Memorial Day in America. It occurred in Charleston, SC to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp, according to the American Oracle : The Civil War In the Civil Rights Era, a book written by David Blight a Yale University professor .

Freed Slaves Led The Charge

The freedmen cleaned up and landscaped the burial ground, building an enclosure and an arch labeled, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

According to History.com, “a crowd of 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves with some white missionaries, staged a parade around the race track. Three thousand Black schoolchildren carried bouquets of flowers and sang ‘John Brown’s Body.’ Members of the famed 54th Massachusetts and other Black Union regiments were in attendance and performed double-time marches. Black ministers recited verses from the Bible.”

Discovery

Blight discovered the untold story of the first Memorial Day while going through archival materials from Union soldiers in a Harvard University library in 1996.

“This was a story that had really been suppressed both in the local memory and certainly the national memory,” said Blight. “But nobody who had witnessed it could ever have forgotten it.”

After the Civil War, the old horse track and country club were torn down and with the help of a rich Northern patron, the graves of the Union soldiers were moved from the white-fenced graveyard in Charleston to the Beaufort National Cemetery.