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The Meaning of “Memorial Day” in 2025.

Posted on | May 25, 2025 | 2 Comments

 

 

Mike Magee

According to Veterans Administration historians, one claim on the origin of Memorial Day dates back to 1864 when three women from Boalsburg, Pennsylvania joined in grief to decorate the graves of family members who had died in the Civil War. A year later, other townspeople joined in and one year later, in 1866, women in Columbus, Mississippi, joined the event, in honor of fallen Confederate soldiers. That was 14 years after the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1952.

In that first year it was published, Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold over 300,000 copies. Author and critic Alfred Kazin called it “The most powerful and most enduring work ever written about American slavery.” It’s prominence in the American lexicon speaks for itself, and its relevance regarding goodness and governance, leadership by legislation, women’s roles in creating civil societies and the underpinnings of Christianity in the unrealized potential of the American dream all speak to the continued value of the publication.

On page 2 of the preface, Harriet Beecher Stowe comments on “memorializing” human hatred and cruelty to the ash bin of history. She writes,  “It is a comfort to hope, as so many of the world’s sorrows and wrongs have, from age to age, been lived down, so a time shall come when sketches similar to these shall be valuable only as memorials of what has long ceased to be.”

To this, we must respond today, “Not yet. There is work that remains.”

On the last page of her book, Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 reflects (as if on our own modern day predicament), “This is an age of the world when nations are trembling and convulsed. A mighty influence is abroad, surging and heaving the world, as with an earthquake. And is America safe? Every nation that carries in its bosom great and unredressed injustice has in it the elements of this last convulsion.”

To this, we believers in human goodness and democracy must respond, “We will never be free, safe and healthy if our elected leaders promote policies – whether here or abroad – that belie our finer instincts, promote fear, and trigger predation.”

The White House, until recently, has largely been a sacred and treasured shrine. Back in 2013, our President at the time, Barack Obama, hosted our former President, George H.W. Bush and his family there to commemorate the 5000th award of a “Daily-Point-of-Light”, that the former President had launched to “honor individuals who demonstrate the transformative power of service, and who are driving significant and sustained impact through their everyday actions and words that light the path for other points of light.”

Here in part, is what President Obama said that day: “…given the humility that’s defined your life, I suspect it’s harder for you to see something that’s clear to everybody else around you, and that’s how bright a light you shine — how your vision and example have illuminated the path for so many others, how your love of service has kindled a similar love in the hearts of millions here at home and around the world.  And, frankly, just the fact that you’re such a gentleman and such a good and kind person I think helps to reinforce that spirit of service. So on behalf of us all, let me just say that we are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you and we can’t thank you enough.”

Just a dozen years ago, just to be publicly “thanked” seemed enough. And “active citizenship” as a member of this great nation was viewed by many – by most – as a duty and an honor – even to the point of sacrificing one’s life in defense of this nation.

That, after all, is what Memorial Day commemorates. Action is required, as is goodness and virtue by example and daily behavior. 

We continue to struggle in the shadow of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We lack perfection, but we certainly could, and should, do better. Because, to be healthy in America, to realize our full potential, to be civilized, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “to make good the cause of freedom against slavery you must be… Declaration of Independence walking.”

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Comments

2 Responses to “The Meaning of “Memorial Day” in 2025.”

  1. ARTHUR ULENE
    May 26th, 2025 @ 10:59 am

    Mike…… Another, more common, version of the Memorial Day history suggests that it started as a celebration of the sacrifice of the UNION soldiers who died in the war, and was originally called Decoration Day, because the graves of these soldiers were decorated with flowers. Presumably, the end of May was chosen because flowers were blooming everywhere in the country at that time. Your thoughts?

  2. Mike Magee
    May 26th, 2025 @ 3:35 pm

    I think that is right as well, Art. The VA version (https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/memday.pdf) makes clear that origin of the tradition is openly disputed. What seems relatively clear is that the tradition began in the North (with the war still actively engaged) and soon after was matched in the South – in multiple locations. It is especially interesting in 2025 given the high levels of chaos and continued debate over how best to accomplish self-governance. Best, Mike

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