Memorial Day
... David Blight, a Yale history professor, points to May 1, 1865, when as many as 10,000 people, many of them Black, held a parade, heard speeches and dedicated the graves of Union dead in Charleston, South Carolina.
A total of 267 Union troops had died at a Confederate prison and were buried in a mass grave. After the war, members of Black churches buried them in individual graves.
"What happened in Charleston does have the right to claim to be first, if that matters," Blight told The Associated Press in 2011.
In 2021, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel cited the story in a Memorial Day speech in Hudson, Ohio. The ceremony’s organizers turned off his microphone because they said it wasn’t relevant to honoring the city’s veterans. The event’s organizers later resigned.
That's the first time I heard of 'that little nugget'! I am glad you included it!
ReplyDeleteIt's about remembering those who gave all.... I lost a few school chums in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I've been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. I feel both angry and ashamed. I'm wondering what other events in our American history have been so blatantly white-washed? Time and research will tell. I'm a little more "WOKE" today than I was yesterday and I wish people would stop using that word as a pejorative. It's simply facing up to the brutal truth that we have been lied to and deceived for whatever reason for a group of people to further their cause to make discrimination of one race by another race more palatable, acceptable. I'm deeply disturbed by this article but thankful that you brought it to our attention. I made a copy and will be discussing this with family members today. It will be an eye-opener for them.
ReplyDeleteChrisA & Milleson - I had never heard of those things either.
ReplyDeletePat - Indeed it is.
Thanks for the history on Memorial Day, Rick. I've never heard this story, which given how America can be, doesn't surprise me. I guess a 1619 education might be necessary after all.
ReplyDeletehsgisme - You are very welcome.
ReplyDelete