Happy Decoration Day

[TheDoctorKing]

In the US, today is Memorial Day. The purpose of the holiday in today's world is to remember all those who have died but especially veterans of our military. I especially remember my father, Donald King, a 25-year veteran of America's intelligence services who served in WW2 and Korea, and my step-mother, Laura Ann Pratt Hanson King, who served in the Red Cross in the Pacific in WW2.

However, the origin of the holiday was Decoration Day, celebrated by African-Americans in the south after the Civil War. They would go to cemeteries where Union soldiers were buried to repair and decorate the graves. Resentful southern whites either ignored or actively vandalized the graves of the Yankee invaders, so African-Americans, who looked on Union soldiers as liberators, took care of the graves. The long string of Republican administrations in the late 19th century took the holiday up as a national event (Republicans in those days were mostly either black southerners or white WASP northerners - this was the era of Grant, McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, etc.). White southerners developed their own holiday, Confederate Decoration Day. When I was a kid in Virginia in the 1960s, we got it off, though it was combined with remembrance of Robert E Lee and Thomas Jackson, two Virginian Confederates who had birthdays that were conveniently close together. It was celebrated in January, not a very good time to decorate graves.

[Captain_Orso]

I at the least cannot remember having heard of Decoration Day before. In Europe on the 1st of May the victims of WWI are remembered and I always associated the two; thanks for the insight.

[Straight Arrow]

Thank you. This is news to me. Very cool.

[Rod Smart]

and all weekend the History Channel played a Pawn Stars marathon....

[DrPostman]

and all weekend the History Channel played a Pawn Stars marathon....

That's sad. That's why I torrent these days. I have cable. My landlord pays
for it, but he also pays for my internet so I just about never watch TV now.

[Le Ricain]

I at the least cannot remember having heard of Decoration Day before. In Europe on the 1st of May the victims of WWI are remembered and I always associated the two; thanks for the insight.

I was not aware that International Labour Day (the 1st of May) had a connection with WWI.