Q.I read your column on May A. celebrations earlier this month. It included information about Memorial Day. How is Memorial Day different from Veteran’s Day? What is the history of Memorial Day?
Memorial Day, originally called “Decoration Day” was established to honor those who gave their lives while fighting the Civil War. The holiday evolved to commemorate all American military personnel who have died in any and all wars. Veteran’s Day is a day to honor those still living who have served or are serving in the military.
There are many cities in the United States that claim to have had or started the “first” Memorial (Decoration) Day. One of those cities is Charleston, SC. The book “A Day for Rememberin’” is a very informative and engaging children’s book that tells a fictionalized story of Decoration Day in Charleston on May 1,1865. The book imagines what it was like for a young Black child on that day of remembrance. The book is based on real-life events and has an excellent supplement that explains the historical facts of that event. The inspiration for the book was a photo that author Leah Henderson “stumbled across.” The photo is “an image of 200 or so Black children getting ready for what looked like a parade. After further research, Henderson found the story about a procession of about ten thousand (mostly newlyfreed enslaved people) led by almost 3,000 Black children. They were processing to a former racecourse that had served as a prison for Union soldiers during the war. The racecourse became, literally, a graveyard for the soldiers who died there. The procession was an organized commemoration of those who, as Abraham Lincoln termed it in the Gettysburg Address, had given their “last full measure of devotion” to their country.
