[Following up
Monday’s Memorial Day special, a series on some of the complex American histories
connected to the holiday’s original identity as Decoration Day.]
On three ways to
argue for remembering Decoration Day as well as Memorial Day.
If someone
(like, I dunno, an imaginary voice in my head to prompt this post…) were to ask
me why we should better remember the histories I’ve traced in this week’s posts—were,
that is, to respond with the “So what?” of today’s title—my first answer would
be simple: because they happened. There are many things about history of which
we can’t be sure, nuances or details that will always remain uncertain or in dispute.
But there are many others that are in fact quite clear, and we just don’t
remember them clearly: and the origins and initial meanings of Decoration Day
are just such clear historical facts. Indeed, so clear were those Decoration
Day starting points that most Southern states chose not to recognize the
holiday at all in its early years. I can’t quite imagine a good-faith argument
for not better remembering clear historical facts (especially when they’re as
relevant as the origins of a holiday are on that holiday!), and I certainly don’t
have any interest in engaging with such an argument.
But there are also
other, broader arguments for better remembering these histories. For one thing,
the changes in the meanings and commemorations of Decoration Day, and then the gradual
shift to Memorial Day, offer a potent illustration of the longstanding role and
power of white supremacist perspectives (not necessarily in the most
discriminatory or violent senses of the concept, but rather as captured by that
Nation editorial’s point about the
negro “disappearing from the field of national politics”) in shaping our
national narratives, histories, and collective memories. In my
adult learning class this past semester I argued for what I called a more
inclusive vs. a more exclusive version of American history, one that overtly pushes
back on those kinds of narrow, exclusionary, white supremacist historical
narratives in favor of a broader and (to my mind) far more accurate sense of
all the American communities that have contributed to and been part of our
identity and story. Remembering Decoration Day as well as Memorial Day would
represent precisely such an inclusive rather than more exclusive version of
American history.
There’s also another
way to think about and frame that argument. Throughout this past year,
conservatives have argued that the
new Common Core and AP
US History standards portray and teach a “negative” vision of American
history, rather than the celebratory one for which these commentators argue
instead. As those hyperlinked articles suggest, these arguments are at best
oversimplified, at worst blatantly inaccurate. But it is fair to say that
better remembering painful histories such as those of slavery, segregation, and
lynching can be a difficult process, especially if we seek to make them more
central to our collective national memories. So the more we can find inspiring
moments and histories, voices and perspectives, that connect both to those
painful histories and to more ideal visions of American identity and community,
the more likely it is (I believe) that we will remember them. And I know of few
American histories more inspiring than that of Decoration Day: its origins and
purposes, its advocates like Frederick Douglass, and its strongest enduring
meaning for the African American community—and, I would argue, for all of us.
May Recap this
weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think?
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