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.
A THREAD
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.
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.
They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
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.
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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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,
A THREAD
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.
Dr. Klenner also experimented with Mrs. Fultz by putting her on a high dosage of vitamin C in the later parts of her pregnancy. Neither Pete nor Annie Mae could read which Klenner exploited.
In 1862, Robert Smalls stole a Confederate Ship and sailed it to Freedom disguised as a captain, freeing his crew and their families.
A THREAD!
In 1862, Robert Smalls was serving as the pilot of a steam powered, Confederate ship, The CSS Planter. It was transporting large guns out of Charleston Harbor and deliver them to Union Navy forces on blockade duty
On the evening of 12th May 1862, The ship was docked and the confederate officers left the ship to spend the night on shore, leaving the slave crew on board. Rob had gotten permission to bring the crew’s families on board for the evening, as long as they were gone before curfew.
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.
In 1896 Florida had a state law that required a minimum number of registered voters to incorporate. 368 voters signed to incorporate Miami.
Black people mostly occupied Overtown and Coconut Grove, which is also the oldest inhabited neighborhood in Miami.
The Black population was largely made up of Florida born Black folks, Bahamians and Black people who came further south from southern states like North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
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.
A THREAD
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.
A rumour spread by a white woman, Fanny Taylor, sparked a massacre in the predominantly black town. Taylor claimed she was sexually assaulted in her house by a Black man. A group of white men believed her claims that she was raped by Jesse Hunter, a recently escaped convict.
The Watch Night Services in Black communities can be traced back to gatherings on December 31, 1862, also known as “Freedom’s Eve.”
THREAD
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.
Just a few months earlier, on September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order that declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate States legally free. However, the decree would not take effect until the start of the new year.
On this day in 1831, Over 60,000 enslaved Jamaicans, led by one man, Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe, went on to carry out one of the largest Slave Rebellions in West Indian history.
A THREAD
So who was the Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe?
He was a baptist deacon and the leader of the native Baptists in Montego Bay. Also he was an avid follower of the growing abolitionist movement in London.
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.