Memorial Day began in the mid-1800s as a way to honor the people who died in the American Civil War. The earliest Memorial Day celebration ever recorded was organized by Black Americans in Charleston, South Carolina in May 1865.
Local reports from The New York Tribune and The Charleston Courier at the time recorded that the community gave fallen Black Union soldiers a proper burial, erecting a brand new cemetery for the Black troops who’d previously been harshly buried in a mass grave. On May 1, 1865, a massive crowd of 10,000 mostly formerly enslaved African Americans threw a parade in their honor, thus beginning a long-standing tradition within the Black community.