“On May 1, 1865, freed slaves gathered in Charleston, South Carolina to commemorate the death of Union soldiers and the end of the American Civil War. Three years later, General John Logan issued a special order that May 30, 1868 be observed as Decoration Day, the first Memorial Day — a day set aside “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land.”1
This event in 1865 memorializes those who paid the price for freedom by those who gained the most because of freedom. It illustrates and suggests that those who should observe Memorial Day are those who live in freedom.
One of the things I find most interesting in Texas is how many family or community cemeteries dot the landscape. Case in point, is the cemetery in the community I live in, which has a gravestone of a soldier who fought in the Civil War. I do not not know his name, rank or which side he fought for, but I am reminded that he fought a war that preserved and offered freedom to so many, then and now.
Therefore, on this Memorial Day, May 30th, let’s remember those who paid a great price for our freedom by not taking it for granted.
1 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-downs/memorial-day-2012_b_1545507.html
