[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 one of my
recent adult learning classes 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 the last few
years, 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.
Special
follow-up post this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think?
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