Memorial Day was political from the beginning. Here’s how the holiday was shaped by race and the Civil War. - Washington Post

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One possible “first” observance of the holiday was the ceremony organized by the recently freed Black community of Charleston, S.C., in 1865. As historian David Blight documents, Black Charlestonians organized a burial of Union prisoners of war who had died in a Confederate war prison. They built an enclosure for the burial ground, established rows of graves and set an archway over the entrance gate inscribed “Martyrs of the Race Course.” Ten thousand people attended, mostly formerly enslaved people. They sang hymns and the national anthem, read Bible verses and decorated graves with flowers, followed by speeches, picnics and Union troop marches that included Black units. As Blight wrote, Black Americans who celebrated Memorial Day “converted Confederate ruin into their own festival of freedom.” Over time, some of that celebration of emancipation may have been subsumed by Juneteenth, the anniversary of slavery’s end in the United States.

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May 31, 2021 at 06:00PM
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Memorial Day was political from the beginning. Here’s how the holiday was shaped by race and the Civil War. - Washington Post

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