Remembering Our Mississippi-Loui

Remembering Our Mississippi-Louisiana "30th of May" Tradition on Memorial Day

By Ser Seshs Ab Heter-CM Boxley
Coordinator Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society
May 26, 2005.
Phone: 601-442-4719.
Email: forksyaroads@aol.com

Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society, Inc (FRS), Fort McPherson Sons and Daughters of U. S. Colored Troops and Vidalia's Women Relief Corps conducted a special Decoration/Memorial Day ceremony at Natchez National Cemetery on May 30, 2005 at 1:30 P. M. The ceremony of placing rosemary on the graves of fallen Union Army Civil war veterans continued a historic part of Decoration Day (now merged into Memorial Day) African Americans ceremonial tradition that was started by the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) as far back as May 5, 1868.

United States Civil War veterans established the GAR on April 6, 1866 in Decatur Illinois. It was birthed out of the need for jobs, care and continued friendship of United States' Army veterans, as well the needs of widows and orphans of their fallen comrades.

Membership in the GAR was restricted to the United States veterans of the Army, Navy and Marines or Revenue Crafters Service, who were honorably discharged. GAR membership also included thousands of African decent Freedom Fighters commonly designated United States Colored Troops during the Civil War.
GAR Posts were established throughout the United States including many in Mississippi and Louisiana. Membership of most of the GAR Posts established in the former separatist Confederate states was of African decent.

By organizing local and national Posts the all male members were able pursue solutions to their economic and social needs and realized newly founded "camaraderie and political power".
To assist them with carrying out their work, the GAR encouraged organization of auxiliaries to it.
The Women Relief Corps (WRC) won the right to become the "official auxiliary" to the GAR. Consequently, WRC chapters became attached to various GAR Posts all over the United States including our Miss-Lou area.
On May 5, 1868, GAR Commander-in-Chief, John A. Logan issued "General Order No. 11 calling for all Departments and Posts to set aside the 30th of May as a day for remembering the sacrifices of fallen comrades."
We quote here a portion of Section 1 of General Order No. 11 that established what was first called Decoration Day: "the 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost ever city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land."

Thus, we see why Decoration Day was called the "30th of May," in our Mississippi-Louisiana area longer than people of African decent who are over 100 years old can remember. Decoration Day was the precursor to the national Memorial Day. The GAR was the precursor of the American Legion.

In 1971 Congress designated the last Monday in May as Memorial Day holiday, regardless if the date is the 30th of May or not. In the Mississippi-Louisiana area a few known connections to the local GAR and 30th of May/Decoration Day remain today. They are the Parson Brownlow GAR Post No. 23 located at 604 North Magnolia Street in Vidalia where the annual procession/parade starts. The annual processional/parade that marches across the Mississippi River and onward to the National Cemetery, accompanied by the Women Relief Corps organization (the ladies dressed in the white uniforms and colorful hats).

Vidalia's GAR Post No. 23 is named after Parson Brownlow who was the reconstruction governor of Tennessee.
Researcher, Yulanda Burgess recently sent FRS a description of 30th of May ceremonies traditionally conducted by African descendants in America. She said "ceremonies honoring the dead often involved a church service and a processional to the cemetery. The procession included carts and wagons decorated with flowers and people on foot carrying sprigs of flowers. People also carried fresh sprigs of Rosemary to represent remembrance and love. The Rosemary was tossed onto the graves to signify that the deceased would not be forgotten. The occasion also included picnicking in the park like atmosphere of the cemetery."

This particular description of African descendants' 30th of May sounds just like the happenings of our Miss-Lou area 30th of May which annually occurred farther back than any living person now over 100 years old can remember.

Gone are the carts and wagons, but Mr. Clarence Randall Jr. of Vidalia remembers them going up Silver Street after crossing the river on the ferry.

At the Natchez National Cemetery the picnic atmosphere was stopped by government bureaucrats' actions, thereby killing small business vendor income for blacks that bought their foodstuff products from local white merchants.

The Women Relief Corps still hold church services the Sunday before the 30th of May/Memorial Day. They still conduct a grand ritual that should be seen by all. People from Vidalia and Natchez still proceed to the National Cemetery on foot.

African descendants from all over the U. S. still return home to the Miss-Lou for the "30th of May." Many lay flowers on the graves of those still in their memory. But few if any, toss Rosemary on the graves of Civil War Freedom Fighting Ancestors and Foreparents to signify that these deceased Greatest Generations of enslaved persons who were Civil War heroes and sheroes are not forgotten.

The regular Memorial Day Program at the cemetery did not include Civil War or GAR re-enactors or programmatic reference to the cemetery's historic beginning.

After the annual Memorial Day program at Natchez National Cemetery members of FRS, Fort McPherson Sons and Daughters of U. S. Colored Troops and The Women Relief Corps of Vidalia's Parson Brownlow GAR Post 23 proceeded to the graves of select known and un-known Civil War veterans and placed Rosemary on their graves continuing the age old African American 30th of May tradition signifying remembrance. They were not forgotten for helping save the Union of the United States and decisively making it possible for today's African Americans to be free from slavery and have many freedom benefits.

The particular graves selected were graves of U. S. Colored Troops whose bodies were dug up from various locations at Natchez Under-the-Hill, on the Natchez Bluffs and across the river in Vidalia and reburied in the new start-up Natchez National Cemetery between 1866 and 1873.

On the 30th of May, Juneteenth and any other day, when we forget about the Greatest Generations of African Decent Freedom Fighters who decisively helped saved the Union of the United States and put slavery out of business guaranteeing today's African Americans Juneteenth and America's first civil rights freedom upon which all subsequent civil rights freedom stand, we betray the legacy of our Great, Great, Grandparents and all the enslaved Ancestors' humanity denied before the self-emancipation freedom fighting actions of the Civil War.
We betray the Freedom Fighters who went to the cemeteries across America on the 30th of May-Decoration for as long as they were alive to honor their fallen comrades. In so doing they were carrying out a pledge that the memory of their fallen comrades would never be forgotten.

As descendants of America's Civil War Union Army Greatest Generations of African decent Freedom Fighters we inherited the obligation indebtedness pledge of our Foreparents and Ancestors who are no longer alive to perform the 30th of May-Decoration Day remembrance ceremonies.

On Memorial Day those African Americans of today who knowingly or unknowingly allow the memory and legacy of our Greatest Generations of Self-emancipated African decent Civil War Freedom Fighters to be forgotten and overshadowed by memory of America's foreign wars, "Lest we forget."

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