The first national observance was shortly after the American Civil War and was then called Decoration Day. Veterans decorated war graves ... many of them Black, held a parade, heard speeches and ...

The origins of Memorial Day can be found in the hearts of grieving families after the Civil War. Casualties were felt in almost every community. While the nation healed, families were trying to ...

My first vivid childhood memory was the day the Japanese attacked ... The horrors of war touched me and my schoolmates when the bells of St. Michael’s Church began their doleful clanging ...

In an 1871 Decoration Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery abolitionist Frederick Douglass said he feared Americans were forgetting the Civil War’s impetus: enslavement. “We must never ...

Memorial Day is a U.S. holiday that's supposed to be about mourning the nation's fallen service members, but it's come to anchor the unofficial start of summer and a long weekend of travel and ...

In an 1871 Decoration Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery abolitionist Frederick Douglass said he feared Americans were forgetting the Civil War’s impetus: enslavement. “We must never ...