On Monday, May 31st, Americans celebrate Memorial Day. Memorial Day is celebrated to honor the men and women who have died while serving in our United States military. The holiday is always observed on the last Monday in May and was originally called Decoration Day. It was originally called Decoration Day because it isn’t an observation of one particular battle.

Memorial Day was first celebrated after the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1871. The reason Memorial Day began after the Civil War is because in the Civil War more soldiers had died than in any other war to that date. The United States built the first national cemeteries after the Civil War. Around the country U.S. citizens honor fallen soldiers.

According to History.com, “Some records show that one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations was organized by a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865.” In 1866, Waterloo, New York, was declared the official birthplace of Memorial Day by the federal government. 

The first large observance of Memorial (Decoration) Day was held at Arlington National Cemetery in 1868. 20,000 graves of Civil War soldiers were decorated by 5,000 participants. Speeches were given, children of the soldiers and other significant people made their way through the cemetery, flowers were put on both Union and Confederate graves, and people recited prayers and sang hymns.

James A. Garfield, U.S. President at the time, was one of the individuals to give a speech. A famous quote from his speech on that day is, “We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke; but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country, they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue.”

Decoration Day was observed to honor fallen soldiers in the Civil War, but as the holiday began to be known as Memorial Day, it shifted to honoring all fallen soldiers. This happened during the time of World War I, as the U.S. military was involved in another major conflict. Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30th, the original date chosen for observance, until 1968 when Congress passed the “Uniform Monday Holiday Act”.

Many Southern states have Confederate observances on separate days to honor Confederate soldiers that had died. The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs states that, “Mississippi celebrates Confederate Memorial Day on the last Monday of April, Alabama on the fourth Monday of April, and Georgia on April 26. North and South Carolina observe it on May 10, Louisiana on June 3 and Tennessee calls that date Confederate Decoration Day. Texas celebrates Confederate Heroes Day January 19 and Virginia calls the last Monday in May Confederate Memorial Day.”

As mentioned, Americans will celebrate Memorial Day visiting cemeteries and memorials. The tradition of wearing a red poppy began with a World War I poem. The poem “In Flanders Field” was written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. The red poppy symbolizes a remembrance of those who have fallen in war.

In December 2000, Congress passed, and the president signed into law “The National Moment of Remembrance Act”. The National Moment of Remembrance encourages all Americans to remember and honor those who have died in service to our country. This moment occurs on Memorial Day at 3 p.m. local time.