This Army veteran was giving a speech on the Black history of Memorial Day when his mic was turned off.
Watch what happened next...
Watch what happened next...
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00:00Charleston's Decoration Day was the first. It was attended by Charleston's black community.
00:08Hey Jay, Mike.
00:14Memorial Day was first commemorated by an organized group of black freed slaves
00:21less than a month after the confederacy surrendered.
00:25In recent years the origins of how and where Decoration Day began has sparked lively debate
00:32amongst historians. However, Yale historian David Blight, asserting the holiday is rooted
00:39in a moving ceremony, was conducted by freed slaves on May 1st, 1865 at the tattered remains
00:50of a confederate prisoner of war camp. It was a Charleston-Washington race course and jockey club
00:58today known as Hampton Park. The ceremony is to believe to have included a parade
01:04of as many as 10,000 people, including 3,000 African-American school children
01:13singing the union marching song John Brown's Body. They were carrying armfuls of flowers
01:21and went to decorate the graves. Interesting that there would be a tie back to Hudson
01:26with that song from John Brown. Most importantly whether Charleston's Decoration Day was the first
01:35is attended by Charleston's black community.
01:40Hey Jay, Mike.
01:44We'll continue on. This is why you moved in closer so you can hear this.
01:51Okay, most importantly two weeks prior to the ceremony the former slaves
01:58and workmen exhumed a mass grave of 240 union soldiers and officers.
02:13Now each soldier was given a proper burial. They constructed a fence to protect the cemetery site
02:22and erected a sign over the entrance that reads Martyrs of the Racecourse.
02:28The dead prisoners of war at the racetrack must have seemed especially worthy of the honor
02:36that former slaves had in treating their remains because there was a tie between
02:43the slaves at that time and the union officers and soldiers because both suffered imprisonment
02:50and mistreatment by their captors. Not surprisingly many white southerners who had
02:56supported the Confederacy did not feel compelled to spend the day decorating the graves of their
03:02former enemies. I can understand that being in the military but in following years it was the
03:11African-Americans in the south who perpetuated and kept alive the Memorial Day tradition at that time.
03:32you