“This was the first Memorial Day [Monday, May 1st, 1865]. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is Black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution.”
![“This was the first Memorial Day [Monday, May 1st, 1865].…” quote by David W. Blight](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/ab2/david-w-blight-85668_african-american_this-was-the-first-memorial-day-monday-m_3134052.jpg)
