Memorial Day Facts — Part 1: Who actually started it.

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]The first Memorial Day >> [music] >> was organized by formerly enslaved people.

[00:00:05]In May 1865, weeks after the Civil War ended, black residents [music] of Charleston, South Carolina gathered to honor 257 Union soldiers who had died in a Confederate prison camp.

[00:00:19]They had been dumped in a mass grave behind a racetrack.

[00:00:23]The community exhumed every single body >> [music] >> and gave each one a proper burial.