As we pause to remember the nation’s war dead, it’s worth remembering that Memorial Day was first celebrated by Black Union troops and free Black Americans in Charleston, South Carolina at the end of the Civil War.
Memorial Day was started by former slaves on May, 1, 1865, in Charleston, S.C., to honor 257 dead Union soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in an upscale race track converted into a Confederate prison camp. They dug up the bodies and worked for two weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. They then held a parade of 10,000 people led by 3,000 Black children, where they marched, sang and celebrated.
As historian David Blight recounts in his masterful book, “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” (2001), Charleston was occupied by Union troops in the spring of 1865, most white residents having fled the city. In this atmosphere, the free Black population of Charleston, primarily consisting of former slaves, engaged in a series of celebrations to proclaim the meaning of the war as they saw it.
The height of these celebrations took place on May 1, 1865, on the grounds of the former Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, an elite facility which had been used by the Confederates as a gruesome prison and mass grave for unlucky Union soldiers. Following the evacuation of Charleston, Black laborers had dug up the remains of Union soldiers, given them a proper burial, and built the trappings of a respectful cemetery around the site to memorialize their sacrifice.
To dedicate the cemetery to the Union’s war dead, Black and white leaders came together to organize a parade of 10,000 people, described in a New York Tribune account as “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.” At the front of the parade were 3,000 Black children, laden with roses and singing “John Brown’s Body,” while bringing up the rear were a brigade of Union troops, including the Massachusetts 54th Regiment and the 34th and 104th United States Colored Troops. (The commander of the 21st United States Colored Infantry had been the one to formally accept the city’s surrender.) Following the parade and dedication in the cemetery, the crowd settled down to picnic, listen to orators and watch the troops march.
As we pause to remember the nation’s war dead, it’s worth remembering that Memorial Day was first celebrated by Black Union troops and free Black Americans in Charleston, South Carolina at the end of the Civil War.
In the years to come, there would be many variations on Memorial (or “Decoration”) Day before the nation settled on the holiday’s current form. These differences often reflected the competing visions of white Northerners and Southerners over how to remember the war, and there was generally little room in either vision for the meaning of the war for African-Americans.
But as Blight wrote in “Race and Reunion,” in its origins, Memorial Day was “founded by African Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration.”
James DeWolf Perry, executive director of the Tracing Center, which he co-founded, was nominated for an Emmy award for his role as the principal historical consultant for “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” the 2008 PBS documentary about the legacy of the Northern U.S. role in slavery and the slave trade. James also appears throughout the film as a descendant of U.S. Sen. James DeWolf of Bristol, R.I. (1764-1837), the leading slave trader in U.S. history. Since the film’s premiere, James has spoken across the nation and abroad about his family’s, and the nation’s, historic role in slavery and has facilitated discussions about the nation’s legacy of slavery and race at high schools and universities and with corporate, educational, religious and community groups. This story originally appeared on the Tracing Center.
Forgetting why we remember
Excerpt from commentary by David W. Blight
(F)or the earliest and most remarkable Memorial Day, we must return to where the war began. By the spring of 1865, after a long siege and prolonged bombardment, the beautiful port city of Charleston, S.C., lay in ruin and occupied by Union troops. Among the first soldiers to enter and march up Meeting Street singing liberation songs was the 21st United States Colored Infantry; their commander accepted the city’s official surrender.
Whites had largely abandoned the city, but thousands of Blacks, mostly former slaves, had remained, and they conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war.
The largest of these events, forgotten until I had some extraordinary luck in an archive at Harvard, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the city’s Washington Race Course and Jockey Club into an outdoor prison. Union captives were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand.
These infantrymen were among the Black founders on Memorial Day on May 1, 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina.
After the Confederate evacuation of Charleston, Black workmen went to the site, reburied the Union dead properly and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
The symbolic power of this Low Country planter aristocracy’s bastion was not lost on the freedpeople, who then, in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged a parade of 10,000 on the track. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.”
The procession was led by 3,000 Black schoolchildren carrying armloads of roses and singing the Union marching song “John Brown’s Body.” Several hundred Black women followed with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came Black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantrymen. Within the cemetery enclosure a Black children’s choir sang “We’ll Rally Around the Flag,” the “Star-Spangled Banner” and spirituals before a series of Black ministers read from the Bible.
The war was over, and Memorial Day had been founded by African-Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration. The war, they had boldly announced, had been about the triumph of their emancipation over a slaveholders’ republic. They were themselves the true patriots.
After the dedication, the crowd dispersed into the infield and did what many of us do on Memorial Day: enjoyed picnics, listened to speeches and watched soldiers drill. Among the full brigade of Union infantrymen participating were the famous 54th Massachusetts and the 34th and 104th United States Colored Troops, who performed a special double-columned march around the gravesite.
The war was over, and Memorial Day had been founded by African-Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration. The war, they had boldly announced, had been about the triumph of their emancipation over a slaveholders’ republic. They were themselves the true patriots.
This plaque in what is now called Hampton Park in Charleston, S.C., marks the place where Blacks held the first Memorial Day on May 1, 1865.
