After the civil war ended in 1865, more lives had been lost than in any other conflict in US history.
Formerly enslaved African Americans and some African American freemen, on May 1, 1865, in Charleston, SC, gathered to pay their respects to 257 African American dead Union soldiers buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp.
For two weeks, they dug up the bodies and made plans to bury them properly, show their gratitude and honour them for fighting for their freedom.
The African American soldiers who had died were labelled “Martyrs of the Race Course.” Soon enough, this event came to be Decoration day.
In April of the same year, 28 black men who were formerly enslaved people from one of the local churches built in 10 days a suitable enclosure at a race course for the burial ground.
A whitewashed wooden fence and archway on which the men inscribed in black letters, “Martyrs of the race course.”
The procession to this special burial ground began at 9 am on May 1, 1865, when 3000 children who had recently enrolled in Freedmen’s schools marched around the race course. Each of these children had roses and sang “John Brown’s body”.
The Patriotic Association followed behind. A group organised to distribute clothing and other goods among the freedpeople, represented by 300 black women. These women carried baskets of flowers, crosses and wreaths.
The Mutual Aid Society, made up of black men, marched next around the track and into the burial ground. They were followed by large crowds of black and white citizens.
A newspaper correspondent who recorded the scene said that when they were done, the ground became one mass of flowers, leaving no speck of earth to be seen, and most of the audience was moved to tears.
While the march was going on, the children sang songs. Then the ministers of all the black churches in Charleston conducted the ceremony. This was followed by speeches from veterans, abolitionist ministers, and union officers.
When the ceremony was over, there was a picnic, and an entire brigade of Union infantry, including Colored Troops, marched in double columns around the martyrs’ graves and held a drill on the infield of the Race Course.
The war was over, and the African Americans had begun a tradition to remember and honour. The Charleston Daily Courier documented this ceremony. This tradition birthed what we’ve come to know as Memorial Day.
