To prepare my own remarks, which I hope to keep to 5 minutes, I've decided to post them here, and edit them over the next few weeks.
A History of Memorial Day
What does Memorial Day mean to us? If Jay Leno was to interview the random American today, I would say that most would view it as a three-day weekend, the official start of the summer. It's a time of relaxation, backyard grills and baseball. It's a holiday.
But what did it mean in the beginning?
Memorial Day is a day of remembrance that was started in the aftermath of the Civil War. Let me spend just a few minutes describing how it came to be.
In September 1864, when the city of Atlanta fell to General Sherman, the leaders of the Confederacy were panicked over the possibility that Union troops would soon liberate the thousands of prisoners held at Andersonville. So they decided to move the prisoners out of state, to Alabama and South Carolina. Only the sickest and most emaciated Union prisoners were left behind to die in Andersonville.
A large contingent of these Union prisoners were marched to Charleston, where they were imprisoned within a makeshift facility at the Planters Horse Race track, an area which is now Hamptons Park, just north of the campus of The Citadel.
The prisoners were given no clothing, no blankets, and no tents. They slept in holes they dug for themselves in the racetrack infield, exposed, round the clock, to the cycles of noon-day sun torrential downpours, and freezing nights. They were fed very little food and given dirty water to drink. Most of them did not survive the winter. Mass, unmarked graves were dug for them as they died on one end of the track.
Keep in mind that the race track was in the north end of the city, which was under constant bombardment by Union warships. The residents of the city could see the conditions of the camp every day. It must have been a powerful and gruesome sight.
As news spread of the Appomattox peace in April 1865, the camp was abandoned, and quickly liberated by Union navy personnel. Only a few dozen prisoners had survived.
Within days, a group of newly-freed African American carpenters decided to dig up the mass graves of the Union prisoners, and give them each a proper burial in individual caskets. They enclosed the new burial ground with a fence, and built a gate, over which they hung a sign that read, "the Martyrs of the Race Course".
Think about that for a moment. These people were inhabitants of a city that had been reduced to rubble. Food and clean water was scarce, and most people were sick or injured or traumatized. For African Americans, all they had was their newly won freedom. They had no property, no income, no eduction. And yet their first impulse was to right the grotesques wrongs that had occurred in their midst, in their very neighborhood.
A few days later, with the help of Union troops and several abolitionists, this same group organized a parade at the racetrack to commemorate the dead. Amazingly, 10,000 people showed up, traveling from towns and farms all over the Low Country. A group of 3,000 children formed a choir, and marched around the race track singing "America" and "The Star Spangled Banner". They placed flowers on the gravestones and listened to sermons from local ministers and speeched from Union officers.
As a result of this spontaneous ceremony, the same practice was repeated every year at cemeteries all over the county. Originally dubbed "Decoration Day", for the practice of placing flowers on the gravestones, it was soon renamed "Memorial Day", and was first officially recognized as a state holiday in New York in 1868.
However, as the years passed, Memorial Day began to lose its stature, as the North and the South both sought ways to downplay the whole conflict, and put it behind it.
To African Americans, this was an affront, because for them, Memorial Day was a day of Emancipation. It marked the true birth of American liberty.
At a Memorial Day ceremony in 1876, the great Frederick Douglas told the crowd assembled, "If this war is to be forgotten, then in the name of everything sacred, what are we supposed to remember?"
Fortunately, the holiday's practice continued, though its meaning became diluted over the generations. By the early 20th century, it was no longer a holiday solely focused on the Civil War, but became a remembrance of all wars, and was a means with which to remember all of those who died in service to the country.
Every year, Memorial Day needs our serious attention. Rather than fill us with relaxation, it should fill us with resolve. We should spend at least a few minutes every Memorial Day in a fit of rage, as we contemplate the stupid political failures that lead us to war. The fact that wars still exist is proof that our politicians are still failing us. We therefore need the collective memory of past wars to keep us vigilant against the possibility for future wars. Heaven help us if we forget again.
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