MEMORIAL DAY
- By lemaster
- •
- 04 Jun, 2018
Memorial Day or Decoration Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country's armed forces. The holiday, which is currently observed every year on the last Monday of May, was held on May 28, 2018. The holiday was held on May 30 from 1868 to 1970. It marks the unofficial start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.
Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.
Memorial Day is not to be confused with Veterans Day – Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving, whereas Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans. It is also not to be confused with Armed Forces Day, a minor U.S. remembrance celebrated earlier in May, which specifically honors those currently serving in the U.S. military.
History
1870 Decoration Day parade in St. Paul, Minnesota
The practice of decorating soldiers' graves with flowers is an ancient custom. Soldiers' graves were decorated in the U.S. before and during the American Civil War.
Some believe that an annual cemetery decoration practice began before the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the "memorial day" idea. Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are still held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in some rural areas of the American South, notably in the mountain areas. In cases involving a family graveyard where remote ancestors as well as those who were deceased more recently are buried, this may take on the character of an extended family reunion to which some people travel hundreds of miles. People gather, put flowers on graves and renew contacts with relatives and others. There often is a religious service and a picnic-like "dinner on the grounds," the traditional term for a potluck meal at a church.
On June 3, 1861, Warrenton, Virginia was the location of the first Civil War soldier's grave ever to be decorated, according to a Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper article in 1906. In 1862, women in Savannah, Georgia decorated Confederate soldiers' graves according to the Savannah Republican. The 1863 cemetery dedication at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was a ceremony of commemoration at the graves of dead soldiers. On July 4, 1864, ladies decorated soldiers' graves according to local historians in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania and Boalsburg promotes itself as the birthplace of Memorial Day.
In April 1865, following President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, commemorations were ubiquitous. The more than 600,000 soldiers of both sides who died in the Civil War meant that burial and memorialization took on new cultural significance. Under the leadership of women during the war, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken shape. In 1865, the federal government began creating national military cemeteries for the Union war dead.
On May 1, 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina, recently freed African-Americans held a parade of 10,000 people to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers, whose remains they had reburied from a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp. Historian David W. Blight cites contemporary news reports of this incident in the Charleston Daily Courier and the New-York Tribune. Although Blight claimed that "African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina", in 2012, Blight stated that he "has no evidence" that the event in Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the country. Accordingly, investigators for Time Magazine, LiveScience, RealClearLife and Snopes have called this conclusion into question.
In 1868, copying a southern annual observance, General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans founded in Decatur, Illinois, established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the Union war dead with flowers. By the 20th century, various Union and Confederate memorial traditions, celebrated on different days, merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service.
On May 26, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson designated an "official" birthplace of the holiday by signing the presidential proclamation naming Waterloo, New York, as the holder of the title. This action followed House Concurrent Resolution 587, in which the 89th Congress had officially recognized that the patriotic tradition of observing Memorial Day had begun one hundred years prior in Waterloo, New York. The village credits druggist Henry C. Welles and county clerk John B. Murray as the founders of the holiday. Scholars have determined that the Waterloo account is a myth. Snopes and Live Science also discredit the Waterloo account.
In the North
The Tomb of the Unknowns located in Arlington National Cemetery
On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan issued a proclamation calling for "Decoration Day" to be observed annually and nationwide; he was commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of and for Union Civil War veterans. With his proclamation, Logan adopted the Memorial Day practice that had begun in the Southern states three years earlier.
The first northern Memorial Day was observed on May 30, 1868. One author claims that the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of any particular battle. According to a White House address in 2010, the date was chosen as the optimal date for flowers to be in bloom in the North.
The northern states quickly adopted the holiday. In 1868, memorial events were held in 183 cemeteries in 27 states, and 336 in 1869. In 1871, Michigan made "Decoration Day" an official state holiday and by 1890, every northern state had followed suit. There was no standard program for the ceremonies, but they were typically sponsored by the Women's Relief Corps, the women's auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), which had 100,000 members. By 1870, the remains of nearly 300,000 Union dead had been reinterred in 73 national cemeteries, located near major battlefields and thus mainly in the South. The most famous are Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania and Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.
Memorial Day speeches became an occasion for veterans, politicians, and ministers to commemorate the Civil War and, at first, to rehash the "atrocities" of the enemy. They mixed religion and celebratory nationalism for the people to make sense of their history in terms of sacrifice for a better nation. People of all religious beliefs joined together and the point was often made that the German and Irish soldiers had become true Americans in the "baptism of blood" on the battlefield.
Since 1868, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, has held annual Memorial Day parades which it claims to be the nation's oldest continuously running. However, the Memorial Day parade in Rochester, Wisconsin, predates Doylestown's by one year.
By the 1880s, ceremonies were becoming quite similar as the GAR provided handbooks that presented specific procedures, poems, and Bible verses for local post commanders to utilize in planning the local event. Historian Stuart McConnell reports:
“On the day itself, the post assembled and marched to the local cemetery to decorate the graves of the fallen, an enterprise meticulously organized months in advance to assure that none were missed. Finally came a simple and subdued graveyard service involving prayers, short patriotic speeches, and music...and at the end perhaps a rifle salute.”
In the South
Confederate Memorial Monument in Montgomery, Alabama
The U.S. National Park Service and numerous scholars attribute the beginning of a Memorial Day practice in the South to the ladies of Columbus, Georgia. On April 25, 1866, women in Columbus, Mississippi laid flowers on the graves of both the Union and Confederate dead in the city's cemetery. The early southern Memorial Day celebrations were simple, somber occasions for veterans and their families to honor the dead and tend to local cemeteries.
Historians acknowledge the Ladies Memorial Association played a key role in these rituals of preservation of Confederate "memory." Various dates ranging from April 25 to mid-June were adopted in different Southern states. Across the South, associations were founded, many by women, to establish and care for permanent cemeteries for the Confederate dead, organize commemorative ceremonies, and sponsor appropriate monuments as a permanent way of remembering the Confederate dead. The most important of these was the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which grew from 17,000 members in 1900 to nearly 100,000 women by World War I. They were "strikingly successful at raising money to build Confederate monuments, lobbying legislatures and Congress for the reburial of Confederate dead, and working to shape the content of history textbooks."
In 1868, some southerners appended the label "Confederate" to what they originally called "Memorial Day" after northerners co-opted the holiday. The tradition of observances were linked to the South, they served as the prototype for the national day of memory embraced by the nation in 1868.
By 1890, there was a shift from the emphasis on honoring specific soldiers to a public commemoration of the Confederate south. Changes in the ceremony's hymns and speeches reflect an evolution of the ritual into a symbol of cultural renewal and conservatism in the South. By 1913, David Blight argues, the theme of American nationalism shared equal time with the Confederate.
At Gettysburg
Soldiers National Monument at the center of Gettysburg National Cemetery
Starting in 1868, the ceremonies and Memorial Day address at Gettysburg National Park became nationally known. In July 1913, veterans of the United States and Confederate armies gathered in Gettysburg to commemorate the fifty-year anniversary of the Civil War's bloodiest and most famous battle.
Since the cemetery dedication at Gettysburg occurred on November 19, that day (or the closest weekend) has been designated as their own local memorial day that is referred to as Remembrance Day.
20th century
Indiana from the 1860s to the 1920s saw numerous debates on how to expand the celebration. It was a favorite lobbying activity of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). An 1884 GAR handbook explained that Memorial Day was "the day of all days in the G.A.R. Calendar" in terms of mobilizing public support for pensions. It advised family members to "exercise great care" in keeping the veterans sober. As the years went by, the GAR complained more and more about the younger generation. In 1913, one Hoosier veteran complained that younger people born since the war had a "tendency ... to forget the purpose of Memorial Day and make it a day for games, races and revelry, instead of a day of memory and tears." Indeed, in 1911 the scheduling of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway car race was vehemently opposed by the increasingly elderly GAR. The state legislature in 1923 rejected the race on that special day. But the new American Legion and local officials wanted the big race to continue, so Governor Warren McCray vetoed the bill and the race went on.
In the national capital in 1913 the four-day "Blue-Gray Reunion" featured parades, re-enactments, and speeches from a host of dignitaries, including President Woodrow Wilson, the first Southerner elected to the White House since the War. James Heflin of Alabama gave the main address. Heflin was a noted orator; his choice as Memorial Day speaker was criticized, as he was opposed for his support of segregation; however, his speech was moderate in tone and stressed national unity and goodwill, gaining him praise from newspapers.
One of the longest-standing traditions is the running of the Indianapolis 500, an auto race which has been held in conjunction with Memorial Day since 1911. Originally it was held on Memorial Day itself, and since 1974 it runs on the Sunday preceding the Memorial Day holiday. Since 1961 NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 has been held during Memorial Day weekend, and has also been held on the previous Sunday since 1974. Since 1976, The Memorial Tournament golf event has been held on or close to the Memorial Day weekend. The final of the NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship is held on Memorial Day.
"On Decoration Day" Political cartoon c. 1900 by John T. McCutcheon. Caption: "You bet I'm goin' to be a soldier, too, like my Uncle David, when I grow up."
The preferred name for the holiday gradually changed from "Decoration Day" to "Memorial Day," which was first used in 1882. Memorial Day did not become the more common name until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967. On June 28, 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved four holidays, including Memorial Day, from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971. After some initial confusion and unwillingness to comply, all 50 states adopted Congress' change of date within a few years.
21st century
Memorial Day endures as a holiday which most businesses observe because it marks the unofficial beginning of summer. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW) advocated returning to the original date, although the significance of the date is tenuous. The VFW stated in 2002:
Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed a lot to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.
In 2000, Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act, asking people to stop and remember at 3:00 PM.
On Memorial Day, the flag of the United States is raised briskly to the top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position, where it remains only until noon. It is then raised to full-staff for the remainder of the day.
Memorial Day observances in small New England towns are often marked by dedications and remarks by veterans and politicians.
The National Memorial Day Concert takes place on the west lawn of the United States Capitol. The concert is broadcast on PBS and NPR. Music is performed, and respect is paid to the men and women who gave their lives for their country.
Across the United States, the central event is attending one of the thousands of parades held on Memorial Day in large and small cities. Most of these feature marching bands and an overall military theme with the Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard and Veteran service members participating along with military vehicles from various wars.
Poppies
Main article: Remembrance poppy
In 1915, following the Second Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a physician with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, wrote the poem, "In Flanders Fields". Its opening lines refer to the fields of poppies that grew among the soldiers' graves in Flanders.
In 1918, inspired by the poem, YWCA worker Moina Michael attended a YWCA Overseas War Secretaries' conference wearing a silk poppy pinned to her coat and distributed over two dozen more to others present. In 1920, the National American Legion adopted it as their official symbol of remembrance.
As civil religious holiday
Scholars, following the lead of sociologist Robert Bellah, often make the argument that the United States has a secular "civil religion" – one with no association with any religious denomination or viewpoint – that has incorporated Memorial Day as a sacred event. With the Civil War, a new theme of death, sacrifice and rebirth enters the civil religion. Memorial Day gave ritual expression to these themes, integrating the local community into a sense of nationalism. The American civil religion, in contrast to that of France, was never anticlerical or militantly secular; in contrast to Britain, it was not tied to a specific denomination, such as the Church of England. The Americans borrowed from different religious traditions so that the average American saw no conflict between the two, and deep levels of personal motivation were aligned with attaining national goals.
Memorial Day has been called a "modern cult of the dead". It incorporates Christian themes of sacrifice while uniting citizens of various faiths.
In film, literature, and music
Films
- Memorial Day (2012) is a war film starring James Cromwell, Jonathan Bennett, and John Cromwell.
- Logan Lucky (2017) starring Channing Tatum
Music
- Charles Ives's symphonic poem Decoration Day depicted the holiday as he experienced it in his childhood, with his father's band leading the way to the town cemetery, the playing of "Taps" on a trumpet, and a livelier march tune on the way back to the town. It is frequently played with three other Ives works based on holidays, as the second movement of A Symphony: New England Holidays.
Poetry
Poems commemorating Memorial Day include:
- Michael Anania's "Memorial Day" (1994)
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Decoration Day" (1882)
- Joyce Kilmer's "Memorial Day"
As I was reviewing the readings from mass yesterday, I turned to my American Patriots Bible, edited by Dr Richard G. Lee (I would suggest you pick up a copy of this bible – it is fantastic). The first reading was from Zechariah, the second to the last book in the Old Testament, written 500 years before Christ. The theme of this book is the return of God to the City of Jerusalem.
But God’s richest blessings are bestowed with certain responsibilities. * As he took his place as America’s 23rd President in 1889, Benjamin Harrison admonished his fellow citizens, “No other people have a government more worthy of their respect and love, or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look upon, and so full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor. God has placed upon our head a diadem and has laid at our feet power and wealth beyond definition or calculation. But we must not forget that we take these gifts upon the condition that justice and mercy shall hold the reins of power and the upward avenues of hope shall be free to all people.”
* American Patriots Bible , Dr Richard G. Lee. Copyright 2009 by Thomas Nelson Inc.
On July 4, 1776 our Founding
Fathers forged a new nation over 240 years ago with a Constitution which is
perhaps the greatest document ever written, except for the Bible. The Constitution was dedicated to the ideals
that it would not discriminate any people on the basis of race, religion, color
or sex. Never before in the history of
the world had a country that was blessed with so many rights and freedoms given
to its people. Now these rights and
freedoms are being brutally challenged by our radical left wing Democrats.
We the people have seen our cities burned, vandalized, precious monuments and buildings destroyed! Police cars were set on fire, children, police and citizens killed along with destruction of all kinds going rampant.
The individuals doing these criminal acts of violence and murder are not being challenged by the radical left wing Democratic mayors of cities whose socialistic aim is to ruin our government and replace it with Marxist Socialism.
A strong force in all this destruction is a group called “Black Lives Matter” because they say white people are racists and are keeping them in chains. If this is true then who is the party of racists and who is the party of chains. It is time to be accurate and honest about the history of black people and the Democratic party.
Let us set the record straight, once and for all!!!
The following article was sent to me that was named ,
STUDENTS FOR TRUMP
Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President. Lincoln wanted to free the slaves. Democrats fought the Civil War to keep the slaves in bondage. During this war thousands of white soldiers died for their black brothers.
President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves in America. Democrat slave owners were furious. Lincoln made equality for all and made black people part of the official Republican Party platform. Republicans wrote and passed the 13th amendment ending slavery forever in the United States. Most Democrats voted against it.
Republicans wrote and passed the 14th amendment and granted citizenship & equal protection under the law to former slaves. No Democrats voted for it. Republicans wrote and passed the 15th amendment, allowing black slaves to vote. No Democrats voted for it.
The first black senator was a Republican. The first black member of the United States House of Representatives was a republican and former slave. In fact, the first 23 black members of congress were all Republican.
While Republicans were electing black people to congress, the Democrats were founding the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK was founded in opposition to the Republican Party. The KKK dedicated itself to a campaign of violence against the blacks and Republican leaders. The KKK wanted white supremacy fulfilled through electing Democrats.
Democratic states passed racist Jim Crow laws that dehumanized black people. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the National Guard to protect black students integrating into all white schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Who opposed this? The Democrats who ran that state.
A segregationist Democrat ran for President every cycle until the 1980’s. The civil rights act outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or sex.
By percentage, more republicans voted for the civil rights act than democrats. Republican President Nixon used federal powers to desegregate even more states.
Black Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas was nominated by George H. W. Bush. His son George W. Bush started an aids program that saved over 13 million lives, mostly in Africa.
President Trump restored funding to historically black colleges and universities. President Trump passed the first step act achieving landmark criminal justice reforms. President Trump passed the tax cuts and jobs act which featured opportunity gains and incentivizing long-term investments in low income communities.
Under President Trump, unemployment for black Americans fell to the lowest number Americans have ever seen and black wages rose to the highest numbers in history.
Meanwhile, Democratic Governor of Virginia wears black face multiple times and remains in office while Joe Biden says “You’re not black unless you vote for me!”
So tell me, who are the racists that want to keep the blacks in bondage? The Democrats or the Republicans?
In conclusion, the Founding Fathers, in their Constitution, can say “Black Lives DO Matter”. And, that, it is their right to have equal rights and freedoms as citizens of the United States of America.
STUDENTS FOR TRUMP
Joe Mastromatteo
More than three-quarters of a
century have passed since the "day that will live in infamy." Just
before eight o'clock in the morning on December 7, 1941, a Japanese force made
up of 350-plus planes, supported by submarines, cruisers, destroyers, and
battleships, attacked Pearl Harbor
, a
U.S. naval station on Oahu, Hawaii.
In total, 2,403 people died in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan destroyed 19 American ships, including the USS Arizona , which remains underwater. You know what came next. The aftermath of the attack plunged the country into World War II, making it, as TheNew York Times reported the next morning , "... the first time in its history, the United States finds itself at war against powers in both the Atlantic and the Pacific."
But even now, 77 years later, there's probably a lot you don't know about Pearl Harbor. We look at five lesser-known facts about one December day that changed the course of history.
COLUMBUS DAY and LYNCHING
We bet you never thought you would see those two words together. We never did either….until this past week.
Columbus Day 2019 was celebrated on Monday, October 14, 2019. Recently there has been a movement to change the name to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and several states and municipalities have embraced this name change. Why? Because they believe the Christopher Columbus was an evil man, who enslaved and killed many of the people he encountered in his quest to discover new lands. That’s a whole other topic.
And what about lynching? This past week, President Trump used the word to describe the current “impeachment hearings” against him that have been going on for the past few months.
Webster defines the term lynching as the following: to inflict punishment upon, especially death, without the forms of law.
Dictionary.com describes it similarly: to put to death, especially by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority.
Used figuratively, one could say that lynching refers to the process of persecution without due process.
Of course, the word is a disturbing one to anyone who knows American history. There were close to 5,000 deaths in the USA in the 20th century by lynching. Gross and despicable. Unacceptable. No question about it. People were killed simply because someone didn’t like them.
But did you know that the largest lynching in US history involved white victims? That’s right. It happened in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1891. 19 men were imprisoned unjustly during the murder trial of New Orleans police chief David Hennessey. All men were of Italian/Sicilian descent. The racism against Italian immigrants at the time was rampant. And after the men were acquitted, they were put back in prison. The next day, a mob broke into the prison and lynched the suspects. 11 were killed. 8 hid throughout the prison and escaped death. It was at that time when President Benjamin Harrison, in an effort to ease tensions between Italy and the US due to the incident, declared the first nationwide celebration of Columbus Day in 1892, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Italian explorer’s landing in the new world.
How fitting it is, then, that this modern-day “lynching” of President Trump is occurring in October, the month our nation celebrates Columbus Day, a day that was put forth following the largest lynching in our nations’ history?
Source: Wikipedia.
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Our Founding Fathers were strong believers in the Bible, which shaped their thinking and writing of their laws and documents. Their principles and ethics of Judeo Christian values were a foundation for our Founding Fathers that formed their political ideas, which resulted in the Republic and Constitution that we have today.
One such document is the Proclamation of the National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer of the Second Continental Congress of June 12, 1775, setting aside July 20, 1775 for such a day. This Proclamation was issued shortly after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, when the War of American Independence had just begun.
This was the first National Day of Prayer, the second being May 17,1776. Note the conciliatory language towards Britain as compared to the Second National Day. This document is published in the Journals of the Continental Congress, and signed by John Hancock, President of the Congress, and affirmed by Charles Thomson, Secretary. Our Christian heritage is clearly evident in this Proclamation.
In 1795 President George Washington issued a Proclamation. When he said;
I, George Washington, President of the United States, do recommend to all religious societies and denominations and to all persons whomsoever within the United States, to set apart and observe a day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer.
With devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God, and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experience.
Therefore, on that day we shall meet together to render sincere thanks for the mercies which distinguish our lot as a nation;
Especially for the possession of constitutions of government which unite and establish liberty with order, and to also preserve our peace, both foreign and domestic and for reasonable control which has been given to a spirit of disorder.
This shall promote prosperity for the condition of our affairs, both public and private, and at the same time humbly and fervently beseech the Kind Author of these blessings graciously to prolong them to us.
To imprint on our hearts a deep and solemn sense of our obligations for them.
To teach us rightly to estimate their immense value.
To preserve us from the arrogance of prosperity.
By our gratitude for these blessings, and by a corresponding conduct as citizens and as men to render this country more and more a safe and propitious asylum for the unfortunate of other countries.
To extend among us true and useful knowledge.
To establish habits of sobriety, order, and morality and piety.
President George Washington January 1, 1795
In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln continued a call for a day of Thanksgiving and Prayer.
In 1952 Congress established a National Day of Prayer as an annual event and signed by President Truman.
In 1988 President Reagan designated the annual National Day of Prayer as the first Thursday in May.
The story of Lexington and Concord began when the British made plans to seize a stash of Patriot munitions stored in Lexington. The plan was discovered, and Paul Revere made his “immortal” ride to warn of the dastardly plot. Minute men sprang into action to oppose the British soldiers marching down the road.
There was a standoff that finally resulted in the mysterious “shot heard round the world,” which no one knows who fired, that began the American Revolution. Americans fought a hit and run style action against the British at Lexington and Concord and successfully moved the munitions to another, safer, location.
In Massachusetts and Maine, Patriots’ Day is basically a day off work for adults and out of school for kids. But in the towns of Lexington and Concord, reenactments of the battles fought there long ago are held every year. Those who come to see the reenactments also can ring the warning bell that warned the British were coming and attend seminars, concerts, races, and other special events. We strongly encourage you to attend these glorious events on Patriots’Day, and bring your children so that they will learn some valuable and incredible history.
Of course, we are blessed to have someone put to life the actions of one we consider to be an Original Founding Father, Paul Revere. Without him warning all the people that the British were coming, who knows what would have happened to the Patriots and Minutemen of the day back in 1775? So, we present to you Mr Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem of Paul Revere.
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