Memorial Day Celebrations ~ Block 27 Stockton Rural Cemetery

Beginning May 1, 1865, after the US Civil War, people of African ancestry began the task to bestow honor, dignity and respect for fallen Union Soldiers that today is called Memorial Day throughout the United States of America.

Many believe this act began a renaissance of the restoration of an African concept of an afterlife. The ancient notion of a monotheistic belief system with a reunion with the creator of all things seen and unseen, connecting the supreme being of the universe in a ritual connection through revered ancestors, connecting life and death is the original reason for Memorial Day.

May 1, 1865, provides the earliest known documentation of previously enslaved Africans in the low country of South Carolina, reconnecting ancient African burial traditions.

Professor David Blight of Yale University and many other scholars have researched the events beginning on May 1, 1865 when a group of former enslaved Africans in Charleston, South Carolina began the task of giving a proper burial to 257 Union soldiers who’d been put into a mass grave, many were US Colored Troops who paid the ultimate sacrifice during the US Civil War.

The ancient connection to “proper burial with honors” by people of African ancestry in Charleston, SC was consecrated by the new cemetery with “an amazing parade of over 10,000 people.

The event was initially called “Decoration Day” and was led by 3,000 school children, followed by hundreds of women and men with baskets of flowers and crosses and followed by uniformed Union soldiers, including US Colored Troops. .

During the US Civil War, many US Soldiers lived in horrible conditions, and 257 US Colored Troops died from exposure and disease. This was the reason for the creation of the mass grave site by the Confederate Army. A total of 28 formerly enslaved African men went to the site and re-buried the men properly, largely as a thank you for helping fight for their freedom. They built a protective fence around the cemetery, and on the outside, put the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

Today, the movie "Roots Reimagined" will bring attention to an ongoing journey to honor enslaved Africans who made profound contributions to the original “Memorial Day ~ Martyrs of the Race Course.”

Memorial Day 2016 we honor the founders and members of the African Baptist Church and African Methodist Episcopal Church who keep us connected, within Block 27 ~ Stockton Rural Cemetery, to the distant past, while preparing our children for amazing future opportunities.