The great national holiday of Memorial Day is upon us and will hopefully bring contemplation beyond plans for summer celebrations.
Congress set the date as the last Monday in May and made the day a national holiday in 1971. It has become as it was conceived as the three-day weekend that marks the official start of summer.
Memorial Day was created more than a century before Congress declared a national holiday because of a deeply felt desire throughout the nation to heal the wounds of Civil War.
The divisive times we live through now are often compared to the days before the conflict that tore the country apart. It would be wise for all of us to seek the unity reknit through the spontaneous origin of Memorial Day.
Freed slaves gathered in Charlestown, S.C., in May of 1865 to celebrate the memory of fallen Union soldiers. In Waterloo, N.Y.; Boalsburg, Pa.; and Columbus, Miss., residents began decorating the graves of fallen combatants in May of 1865.
By 1868 the U.S. Army declared May 30 as Decoration Day, selected because the best flowers were in bloom. The holiday remained set at that date until 1971.
Decoration Day became Memorial Day naturally in the aftermath of World War I as citizens across the country felt the need to show their gratitude for the sacrifice of the fallen from that war.
The same natural emotion occurred following World War II and the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars. In each of these engagements the U.S. mission was the noble protection of liberty and freedom. Regrets and recriminations over policy disputes on the politics of U.S. military involvements do not detract from the purity of the service or the sacrifice of those killed in battle.
There is no better reflection on the national mission for Memorial Day than the conclusion of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Ultimately, government of the people, by the people, for the people is what unites the nation and what all of the fallen gave their lives to protect.
Remembering that in the midst of our three-day weekend and start to summer connects us all to the sacred mission of the United States.
First Published May 26, 2025, 4:09 a.m.
