Happy Memorial Decoration Day

I have posted this before but I do think it bears repeating.

This is the story of the first Decoration Day, which would become Memorial Day, that occurred down here in South Carolina, where good, sweet, wonderful things do happen.

Enjoy, and Happy Memorial Decoration Day.

"The First Decoration Day"

by David W. Blight, Yale University

Americans understand that Memorial Day, or "Decoration Day," as my parents called it, has something to do with honoring the nation's war dead. It is also a day devoted to picnics, road races, commencements, and double-headers. But where did it begin, who created it, and why?

As a nation we are at war now, but for most Americans the scale of death and suffering in this seemingly endless wartime belongs to other people far away, or to people in other neighborhoods. Collectively, we are not even allowed to see our war dead today. That was not the case in 1865.

At the end of the Civil War the dead were everywhere, some in half buried coffins and some visible only as unidentified bones strewn on the killing fields of Virginia or Georgia. Americans, north and south, faced an enormous spiritual and logistical challenge of memorialization. The dead were visible by their massive absence. Approximately 620,000 soldiers died in the war. American deaths in all other wars combined through the Korean conflict totaled 606,000. If the same number of Americans per capita had died in Vietnam as died in the Civil War, 4 million names would be on the Vietnam Memorial. The most immediate legacy of the Civil War was its slaughter and how remember it.

War kills people and destroys human creation; but as though mocking war's devastation, flowers inevitably bloom through its ruins. After a long siege, a prolonged bombardment for months from all around the harbor, and numerous fires, the beautiful port city of Charleston, South Carolina, where the war had begun in April, 1861, lay in ruin by the spring of 1865. The city was largely abandoned by white residents by late February. Among the first troops to enter and march up Meeting Street singing liberation songs was the Twenty First U. S. Colored Infantry; their commander accepted the formal surrender of the city.

Thousands of black Charlestonians, most former slaves, remained in the city and conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war. The largest of these events, and unknown until some extraordinary luck in my recent research, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the planters' horse track, the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, into an outdoor prison. Union soldiers were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of exposure and disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. Some twenty-eight black workmen went to the site, re-buried 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."

Then, black Charlestonians in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people on the slaveholders' race course. The symbolic power of the low-country planter aristocracy's horse track (where they had displayed their wealth, leisure, and influence) was not lost on the freedpeople. 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."

At 9 am on May 1, the procession stepped off led by three thousand black schoolchildren carrying arm loads of roses and singing "John Brown's Body." The children were followed by several hundred black women with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantry and other black and white citizens. As many as possible gathering in the cemetery enclosure; a childrens' choir sang "We'll Rally around the Flag," the "Star-Spangled Banner," and several spirituals before several black ministers read from scripture. No record survives of which biblical passages rung out in the warm spring air, but the spirit of Leviticus 25 was surely present at those burial rites: "for it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you… in the year of this jubilee he shall return every man unto his own possession."

Following the solemn dedication the crowd dispersed into the infield and did what many of us do on Memorial Day: they enjoyed picnics, listened to speeches, and watched soldiers drill. Among the full brigade of Union infantry participating was the famous 54th Massachusetts and the 34th and 104th U.S. Colored Troops, who performed a special double-columned march around the gravesite. The war was over, and Decoration Day had been founded by African Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration. The war, they had boldly announced, had been all about the triumph of their emancipation over a slaveholders' republic, and not about state rights, defense of home, nor merely soldiers' valor and sacrifice.

According to a reminiscence written long after the fact, "several slight disturbances" occurred during the ceremonies on this first Decoration Day, as well as "much harsh talk about the event locally afterward." But a measure of how white Charlestonians suppressed from memory this founding in favor of their own creation of the practice later came fifty-one years afterward, when the president of the Ladies Memorial Association of Charleston received an inquiry about the May 1, 1865 parade. A United Daughters of the Confederacy official from New Orleans wanted to know if it was true that blacks had engaged in such a burial rite. Mrs. S. C. Beckwith responded tersely: "I regret that I was unable to gather any official information in answer to this." In the struggle over memory and meaning in any society, some stories just get lost while others attain mainstream dominance.

Officially, as a national holiday, Memorial Day emerged in 1868 when General John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union veterans organization, called on all former northern soldiers and their communities to conduct ceremonies and decorate graves of their dead comrades. On May 30, 1868, when flowers were plentiful, funereal ceremonies were attended by thousands of people in 183 cemeteries in twenty-seven states. The following year, some 336 cities and towns in thirty-one states, including the South, arranged parades and orations. The observance grew manifold with time. In the South Confederate Memorial Day took shape on three different dates: on April 26 in many deep South states, the anniversary of General Joseph Johnston's final surrender to General William T. Sherman; on May 10 in South and North Carolina, the birthday of Stonewall Jackson; and on June 3 in Virginia, the birthday of Jefferson Davis.

Over time several American towns, north and south, claimed to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. But all of them commemorate cemetery decoration events from 1866. Pride of place as the first large scale ritual of Decoration Day, therefore, goes to African Americans in Charleston. By their labor, their words, their songs, and their solemn parade of flowers and marching feet on their former owners' race course, they created for themselves, and for us, the Independence Day of the Second American Revolution.

The old race track is still there — an oval roadway in Hampton Park in Charleston, named for Wade Hampton, former Confederate general and the white supremacist Redeemer governor of South Carolina after the end of Reconstruction. The lovely park sits adjacent to the Citadel, the military academy of South Carolina, and cadets can be seen jogging on the old track any day of the week. The old gravesite dedicated to the "Martyrs of the Race Course" is gone; those Union dead were reinterred in the 1880s to a national cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina. Some stories endure, some disappear, some are rediscovered in dusty archives, the pages of old newspapers, and in oral history. All such stories as the First Decoration Day are but prelude to future reckonings. All memory is prelude.

David W. Blight teaches American History at Yale University where he is the director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, the author of the Bancroft prize-winning Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, and the forthcoming A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation.

The Funny Papers

Tim Campbell, Dennis Goris, Michel de Adder, Jack Ohman, Nick Anderson, Adam Zyglis, Chris Britt,  Kevin Kallaugher, Bill Bramhall, Matt Davies, Kevin Necessary, Gary Huck, Mike Luckovich, Lalo Alcaraz, Max Espinoza,

Why Is It ...

… that people don’t understand that I am taking part in The May Challenge and so I may give a fuck, or I may not.

… that I had a thirty minute conversation with a co-worker about her weekend and when she finished, I said I was billing her for time wasted.

… that when I went to the doctor with a suspicious looking mole, he said, “They all look that way so you should put him back in the garden.”

… that when my boss said to me, “This is the third time this week we’ve had complaints about your attitude, so you know what that means?” and I said, “It’s Wednesday?”

… that when Carlos made my coffee this morning he handed me the cup and then winked at me; I’ve never been more afraid of a drink in my life!

… that people who say they don’t have time for my bullshit need to wake up earlier.

… that while I was getting gas this morning I noticed the girl on Pump #3 was getting $10. Where the hell was she going, Pump #4?

… that my Serenity Prayer goes like this: God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change; the courage to change direction when I see them coming; and the wisdom not to try to smack some sense into them when I can’t avoid them.

… that the coworker who called me a psychopath doesn’t realize that at least I’m on a path while she is still trying to sort out her life. Right, Melissa?

… that I used to party in fields with people I didn’t know but these days too may people in Aisle 5 is a hard no?

I Didn't Say It ...

Bruce Springsteen, taking a few jobs at Cankles and the regime, on the second to last episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert:

“I’m here in support tonight for Stephen, because you are the first guy in America who has lost his show because we got a president who can’t take a joke, and because Larry and David Ellison [MAGAts who control and fund Skydance and therefore Paramount and CBS] feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want. Bottom of FormStephen, these are small-minded people. They got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about.”

Bruce has zero fucks to give to these oligarchs who want all the money and all the prizes and all the stuff while everyday Americans struggle to put food on the table.

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Medhi Hasan, British-American broadcaster, journalist, and founder of the media company Zeteo, on Cankles feud with Thomas Massie:

“A reminder that [Cankles] is primarily mad at Thomas Massie not because of politics or ideology but because Massie embarrassed over his ties to Jeffry Epstein and his ongoing cover-up of the Epstein files.”

Also, remember all the stress an strife Massie brought to Cankles’ doorstep he did in just six months.

He has seven months left in office.

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Bill Kristol, conservative commentator and former Republican, on a change in his life:

“I’m pro-freedom, pro-law and order, pro-limited government, and pro-the Declaration [of Independence] and the Constitution. And so today, I am a Democrat.”

This is another, former, Republican who is putting this country over his party; who is standing up for what’s right, and not carrying the literal torches for a traitorous, racist, rapist, con art and pedophile.

It’d be nice if more in the GOP followed suit.

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Graham Platner, oyster farmer, Marine Corps veteran, and candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2026 U.S. Senate election in Maine, on the regime choosing war over people:

“We just spent $50B in two months on the war in Iran and I haven’t a single question [about] where it came from. But the moment you say Americans deserve to see housing costs come down, or energy costs come down, the moment we have to take about healthcare, suddenly we have to pull our pockets out and pretend we’re paupers.”

It’s simple: we have a party in power that is literally telling us that they can’t afford day care and health care and Medicare and Medicaid, or find a way to lower energy and housing costs and gas prices, but they can instantly find $50,000,000,000 and counting for a war no one wants.

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Zohran Mamdani, Democratic Socialist mayor of NYC, handing the Democrats their newest catchphrase:

“[Ronald] Reagan famously said the 9 most terrifying words in the English Language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' It's a good quote, but I disagree. I think 9 more terrifying words are actually, 'I worked all day and can't feed my family.’”

Remind the people of the billions spent on war while they pay higher costs for everything.

Remind the people that Cankles’ wants to give $1,8 to the January 6 insurrectionists who broke into a government building, smeared their feces on the walls, threatened to hand the Vice President, and attacked police officers.

And then remind the people that the GOP, the so-called party of Law and Order, hasn’t given one penny to those police offices injured that day.

But what else would you expect from the party of cowards and rapists and traitors.

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Bobservations

On Tuesday Carlos was being driven to Columbia for a court interpretation and I was gleefully dancing at the thought of having the house to myself for short time. But then he told me Blue-Eyed Paul was coming to repair the dryer and would call when he was on his way. I said that was fine because …

“Paul lets me hold his tool while he works.”

“He what?”

“I get to hold his tool while he works.”

Just then he got a text that the court case was postponed and he looked at me and smiled and said he was staying home.

“Damn! Then I won’t be able to hold Paul’s tool?”

“Sweetheart, I can’t see a thing. He could be here now with his tool in your hand and I wouldn’t know.”

Truth.

This Tuxedo Tale, co-starring MaxGoldberg, is from September 2009 and is one of the rare instances when these two boys were not getting along and it reminded me of an old TV show …

“Tuxedo Carrington and MaxGoldberg Carrington Colby Dexter are ready to go at it … I can't wait until one of them pushes the other into the fishpond on the Carrington Estate!”

Seriously? A planned U.K. production of Dreamgirls has been canceled after the rights holders withdrew permission for the show to move forward following complaints over the production’s casting. The Gillian Banks Creative Productions saw their show cancelled after announcing a Dreamgirls cast in which nearly all of the principal roles, with the exception of Curtis, were played by white performers.

Yes, a musical about the rise and fall of a Black all-girl singing group in the 1960s was recast with all-white performers.

Make it make sense.

On February 2, 2009, just thirteen days into his presidency, Barack Obama finished a meeting in the Oval Office with Jim Douglas about the nation’s economic recovery efforts. As photographers prepared to leave the room, Obama noticed something out of place: the sofas had been shifted to make room for the press setup and had not yet been returned. Instead of stepping away and waiting for staff to handle it, Obama simply walked over, grabbed one end of a sofa, and asked Douglas to help move it back.

White House photographer Pete Souza captured the moment, and the photograph quickly became one of the most widely shared images from the early Obama years and still speaks volumes about the kind of human Barack Obama has always been.

Remember that entitled tourist I posted about last week who hurled a rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal?

Well, he’s been identified as Igor Lytvynchuk who claims he was actually doing a good thing … by trying to save a pair of helpless turtles.

Lytvynchuk is now facing federal charges. If convicted, he faces faces up to one year in prison for each charge and a fine of up to $50,000 under the Endangered Species Act and a fine of up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

I guess it’s good he’s rich, eh?

In an interview with Variety, writer Madison Sinclair revealed just one of the jokes—about Melanie and MAGA comedian Tony Hinchcliffe—that was cut  from Netflix's The Roast of Kevin Hart:

“Tony is like Melania: The only thing relevant about him is that he opened for Trump once, too.”

Snap!

Cankles’ showed off his brilliance the other day by coining a new word, and explained it like a toddler:

“Dumocrats. Because they’re dumb, I—they’re dumb. It’s D-U-M. I got rid of the B. So you’re only changing one letter, right? E goes, the U comes.”

That only made many in the Democrat party opt to rename the GOP as the “Rape-ublican party.”

Eren Semerci is a Turkish fashion model, actor, and television personality who appeared on a version of Survivor, so Would You Hit It?

Architecture Wednesday: West Village Apartment

On Perry Street in the West Village is where contemporary design style meets historic bones in this turnkey two-bedroom, two-bathroom home featuring expansive interiors, triple exposures and a desirable split-bedroom layout in a boutique cooperative.

The moment you enter the residence, you find a spacious, airy ambiance rarely found in historic West Village homes. Dramatic barrel-vaulted brick ceilings soar 14 feet high over wide-plank hardwood floors, substantial millwork, oversized windows and Juliet balconies facing north, east and south. The gracious foyer is lined with floor-to-ceiling custom cabinetry.

Ahead, the open-plan great room invites you to relax and entertain alongside swaths of exposed brick, designer lighting, illuminated shelving niches, and a warm wood-burning fireplace. Sharing the space is the open kitchen, where custom cabinetry and marble surround stainless steel appliances, including a Miele gas range, cabinet-front refrigerator, dishwasher and Summit wine cooler. The oversized center island adds plenty of room for casual dining and conversation, while large glass doors frame southern sunlight. Opposite the kitchen is a table for eight and large windows open to the view.

Head to the owner’s suite to find a king-size bedroom with a roomy closet and its own sliding glass door and Juliet balcony. The en suite spa bathroom features a large soaking tub, rain shower, double vanity and illuminated medicine cabinets, all surrounded by floor-to-ceiling tile. A spacious secondary bedroom and a full guest bathroom complete the well-planned layout, while an in-unit washer-dryer and a deeded storage unit add comfort and convenience to this wonderful West Village sanctuary.

Built in 1905 and beautifully reimagined in 2017, 131 Perry Street is a stunning warehouse building featuring a striking corbelled brick facade with grand arches and a two-story tower reminiscent of medieval Italian design. The self-managed, 14-unit elevator co-op offers low monthly charges, part-time superintendent service, intercom entry, and private storage.

Located on a tree-lined Belgian-block street within the Greenwich Village Historic District, this home is surrounded by coveted West Village amenities such as Hudson River Park’s 500 acres of waterfront outdoor space and recreation, The High Line and Whitney Museum and iconic dining and nightlife venues such as Dante, White Horse Tavern and Magnolia Bakery.

Come up with $3M USD and you’ll be living in luxury.

Dwell