AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY Profile picture
May 26, 2024 10 tweets 3 min read Read on X
The origin of Memorial Day trace back to 1865 when freed slaves started a tradition to honor fallen Union soldiers and to celebrate emancipation and commemorate those who died for that cause.

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In 1865, black people in Charleston, South Carolina, held a series of memorials & rituals to honor unnamed fallen Union soldiers and celebrate the struggle against slavery. One of the largest memorial took place on May 1st 1865.
As the civil war ended, confederates had converted the city’s Washington Race Course & Jockey Club into an outdoor prison. Union captives were kept in horrid conditions and at least 257 died of disease and were quickly buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. Image
After the Confederate evacuation of Charleston, black workmen went to the mass grave site, reburied the Union dead properly & built a high fence around the cemetery. Image
They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.” Image
The freed black people, who then, in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged a parade of 10,000 on the track. The procession was led by 3,000 black schoolchildren carrying armloads of roses and singing the Union marching song “John Brown’s Body.”
Several hundreds of black women followed with baskets of flowers, wreaths & crosses. Then came black men marching in, followed by contingents of Union infantrymen.
Within the cemetery black children’s choir sang before a series of black ministers read from the Bible.
After the dedication, the crowd dispersed into the infield and did what many of us do on Memorial Day: enjoyed picnics, listened to speeches and watched soldiers drill. Image
Among the full brigade of Union infantrymen participating were the famous 54th Massachusetts and the 34th and 104th United States Colored Troops, who performed a special double-columned march around the gravesite.
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Jan 19
In May of 1946, The Fultz Sisters or Fultz Quads, became the first identical Black-American quadruplets on record. The Doctor named them and also put them on display for curious onlookers.

The Fascinating and Tragic story of the quadruplets,

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The Fultz Quadruplets were born May 23, 1946 at 3 pounds each. Dr. Klenner took the responsibility of naming the children upon himself since the parents could not read. He decided to name them all Mary followed by the names of the women in the Klenner family. Image
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Jan 11
In 1862, Robert Smalls stole a Confederate Ship and sailed it to Freedom disguised as a captain, freeing his crew and their families.

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Jan 6
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Bahamians were among the first settlers in Miami. The first name on the city charter in 1896, when the city was incorporated, was a Black man named Silas Austin. Out of 368 men who voted to incorporate Miami,162 of them were Black. Image
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Jan 1
102 years ago, in 1923, a lie by a white woman that she’d been sexually assaulted by a black man, led to the destruction of the predominantly African American town of Rosewood, Florida, thus the Rosewood Massacre.

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Rosewood was a quiet, self-sufficient town in Florida. By 1900 the population in Rosewood had become predominantly African-American. Some people farmed or worked in local businesses, including a sawmill in nearby predominantly white town.
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History of the New Year’s Watch Night Service.

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On that night, black people came together in churches and private homes all across the nation, anxiously awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation actually had become law. Image
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Dec 25, 2024
The Baptist War: The Christmas Rebellion.

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So who was the Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe?

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He led a plan for a peaceful general strike to start on Christmas Day in 1831, with the enslaved jamaicans demanding: —more freedom and
—a working wage and refusing to work unless their demands were met by the state owners and managers.
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