🕊️ The First Memorial Day Was Honored by Freed Black Americans in 1865

🕊️ The First Memorial Day Was Honored by Freed Black Americans in 1865

📍 Location: Charleston, South Carolina

📅 Date: May 1, 1865

🎓 Organized by: Formerly enslaved Black men, women, and children

📖 The True Story:

After the Civil War ended, over 260 Union soldiers who had died in a Confederate prison camp were buried in a mass grave at the Charleston racetrack (then used as a prison). Black residents of Charleston:

• Exhumed the bodies and gave them proper burials
• Built a cemetery with an arch reading “Martyrs of the Race Course”
• Held a public procession of 10,000 people, including:
• • Black schoolchildren singing patriotic songs
  • Black Union soldiers
  • Clergy, community leaders, and abolitionist allies

They held a solemn ceremony, prayers, flowers, and singing—a profound act of remembrance and freedom.

🇺🇸 Why It Matters:

This first Memorial Day was not just a tribute to soldiers — it was a Black-led act of liberation, justice, and honor, laying claim to citizenship and dignity in a post-slavery America.

🔍 Source Credibility:

• Documented by historian David W. Blight, Yale University
• Appears in the book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
• Recognized by scholars, but often omitted in official U.S. narratives