Thread by @TalbertSwan

Memorial Day (Thread)

Memorial Day, formally known as Decoration Day, was originally started by a group of African Americans.

The holiday was initially an event held by newly liberated Black people in Charleston, South Carolina.

#MemorialDay

On May 1, 1865, at the end of the Civil War, thousands of newly freed slaves and regiments of the U.S. Colored Troops gathered to march around a Confederate Army prison camp in honor of the unnamed fallen Union soldiers who fought for their freedom.

#MemorialDay

African Americans were erased from the story of Memorial Day by white Democrats after they regained control of state politics at the end of Reconstruction.

A day that originally celebrated Black liberation was highjacked by white supremacists.

#MemorialDay

The spirit of the first Decoration Day was to commemorate the struggle for Black liberation and the fight against racism.

It was unfortunately whitewashed into the modern "Memorial Day.”

#MemorialDay

In the spirit of our ancestors who saw the end of the Civil War with an emancipationist vision that included radical reconstruction, the annihilation of racism, and Black liberation, today, I celebrate the heroes and heroines who died in the struggle for freedom.

#MemorialDay

We remember 2 million Africans who died during the "Middle Passage" across the Atlantic and millions more who died during the march to or confinement along the coast. We remember the millions who lived and died in bondage in the worst form of slavery in history.

#MemorialDay

We remember the Underground Railroad freedom fighters, including but not limited to:

Harriet Tubman
Henry 'Box' Brown
John Parker
Margaret Garner
Rev. John and Jean Rankin
Robert Smalls
William Still
Frederick Douglass

#MemorialDay

We remember the martyrs who lost their lives in the struggle during the Civil Rights Movement:

Rev. George Lee
Lamar Smith
Emmett Till
John Earl Reese
Willie Edwards Jr
Mack Charles
Herbert Lee
Cpl. Roman Ducksworth Jr
Medgar Evers
Addie Mae Collins
Denise McNair

#MemorialDay

We remember the martyrs who lost their lives in the struggle during the Civil Rights Movement:

Carol Robertson
Cynthia Wesley
Virgil Lamar Ware
Henry Hezekiah
James Earl Chaney
Andrew Goodman
Michael Schwerner
Jimmie Lee Jackson
Rev. James Reeb
Viola Gregg Liuzzo

#MemorialDay

We remember brave pioneers who fought for our freedom across the diaspora:

Martin Luther King Jr
Malcolm X
Nelson Mandela
Steve Biko
Fannie Lou Hamer
Mary Church Terell
Richard Allen
Ida B. Wells
Ella Baker
Shirley Chisolm
Marcus Garvey
W.E.B. Dubois
James Baldwin

#MemorialDay

We remember the victims of modern tyranny against black bodies:

Terence Crutcher
Philando Castile
Samuel Dubose
Sandra Bland
Freddy Gray
Tamir Rice
Walter Scott
Laquan McDonald
Eric Garner
Aiyana Jones
Keith Lamont Scott
George Floyd
Breonna Taylor
Botham Jean

#MemorialDay

We remember the brothers and sisters like my Uncle Halbert, who died for an ungrateful nation that treated them like second class citizens.

We remember those like my daughter Talyn, who serves a nation that has to consistently be reminded that #BlackLivesMatter .

#MemorialDay