speakeasy: The First Memorial Day

And with great organization, on May 1, 1865, the black folk of Charleston, in cooperation with white missionaries, teachers, and Union troops, conducted an extraordinary parade of approximately ten thousand people. It began with three thousand black school children (now enrolled in freedmen's schools) marching around the Planters' Race Course with armloads of roses and singing "John Brown's Body." Then followed the black women of Charleston, and then the men. They were in turn followed by members of Union regiments and various white abolitionists such as James Redpath. The crowd gathered in the graveyard; five black preachers read from Scripture, and a black children's choir sang "America," "We Rally Around the Flag," the "Star-spangled Banner," and several spirituals. Then the solemn occasion broke up into an afternoon of speeches, picnics, and drilling troops on the infield of the old planters' horseracing track.

This was the first Memorial Day.

- The Birth of a Genre: Slavery on Film by David W. Blight, Common-place, 07.01

Today, I'm remembering my military Grandfather.