Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Memorial Day 2023 falls on May 29 this year.
Originally known as Decoration Day, the Memorial Day originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of the summer season.
More than a half dozen places have claimed to be the birthplace of the holiday. In October 1864, for instance, three women in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, are said to have decorated the graves of loved ones who died during the Civil War; they then returned in July 1865 accompanied by many of their fellow citizens for a more general commemoration. A large observance, primarily involving African Americans, took place in May 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina. Columbus, Mississippi, held a formal observance for both Union and Confederate dead in 1866. By congressional proclamation in 1966, Waterloo, New York, was cited as the birthplace, also in 1866, of the observance. In 1868 John A. Logan, the commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans, promoted a national holiday on May 30 “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.”
After World War I, as the day came to be observed in honour of those who had died in all U.S. wars, its name changed from Decoration Day to Memorial Day. Since 1971 Memorial Day has been observed on the last Monday in May. A number of Southern states also observe a separate day to honour the Confederate dead. Memorial Day is observed with the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, and by religious services, parades, and speeches nationwide. Flags, insignia, and flowers are placed on the graves of veterans in local cemeteries. The day has also come to signal the beginning of summer in the United States.
The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries.
By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
It is unclear where exactly this tradition originated; numerous different communities may have independently initiated the memorial gatherings. And some records show that one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations was organized by a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865. Nevertheless, in 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day.
Waterloo—which first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—was chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.
Decoration Day
On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed.
The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War soldiers buried there.
Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and reprised the tradition in subsequent years; by 1890 each one had made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Southern states, on the other hand, continued to honor the dead on separate days until after World War I.
History of Memorial Day
Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars, including World War II, The Vietnam War, The Korean War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date General Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day. But in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees. The change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.
Memorial Day Rituals
Cities and towns across the United States host Memorial Day parades each year, often incorporating military personnel and members of veterans’ organizations. Some of the largest parades take place in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.
Americans also observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries and memorials. Some people wear a red poppy in remembrance of those fallen in war—a tradition that began with a World War I poem. On a less somber note, many people take weekend trips or throw parties and barbecues on the holiday, perhaps because Memorial Day weekend—the long weekend comprising the Saturday and Sunday before Memorial Day and Memorial Day itself—unofficially marks the beginning of summer.
Memorial Day Traditions
Annually at Arlington National Cemetery, the president of the United States speaks during a ceremony at the Amphitheater. Numerous military and government organizations also conduct services.In Washington, D.C., the National Memorial Day Parade, hosted by the American Veterans Center, proceeds down Constitution Avenue on Monday afternoon and is broadcast live on all the major networks.
Nearby, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Annual Observance at The Wall includes a wreath-laying and ceremony.
A National Memorial Day Concert, set this year for the evening of Sunday, May 28, is livestreamed on PBS. The 2022 event was broadcast live from the West Front of the United States Capitol.
Beyond the Washington, D.C., area, Memorial Day is observed in thousands of cities and towns throughout the nation every year. These events often include speakers, flyovers, wreath presentations, color guards, musical performances including the playing of taps, “flags in” ceremonies and more.
Flags are flown at half-staff at some municipal buildings, and wreaths and bouquets can often be seen at private residences.
Unofficially, Memorial Day weekend is widely considered to be the start of the summer season.
Why Are Red Poppies Worn on
Memorial Day?
During World War I, the red poppy became a symbol of veteran sacrifice after a war memorial poem, “In Flanders Field,” by soldier John McCrae, a Canadian surgeon.
The famous poem, which McCrae wrote while on the battlefield in 1915, opens with the lines:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
After the Ladies Home Journal magazine printed “In Flanders Field,” an Athens, Georgia, woman named Moina Michael was inspired in 1918 to make the red poppy a symbol for remembering WWI’s fallen soldiers.
The idea caught on, and in the fall of 1920, the American Legion at its convention in Cleveland adopted the red poppy as the memorial flower.
What Does the Red Poppy Symbolize?
Before the advent of modern medicine, healers used plants and herbs to treat patients. Poppy seeds were commonly eaten as a pain reliever, thanks to their traces of morphine and codeine.
After the poem “In Flanders Field” evoked images of swaying poppies, the flower became a symbol of all those who died in WWI and, eventually, in other wars. The poppy’s symbolism spread to include military service in general.
