On May 1, 1865, just weeks after the Civil War’s end, a remarkable procession unfolded at Charleston’s old racecourse. Nearly 10,000 people, most of them newly freed African Americans, gathered to honor 257 Union soldiers who had died as prisoners of war and were buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand of the Washington Race Course, a former Confederate prison camp.

Charleston had served as a key port city for the Confederacy and was home to several makeshift prisons for captured Union troops.

In the days leading up to the event, Black residents of Charleston exhumed the bodies from the mass grave. They reburied the soldiers in orderly rows, landscaped the grounds, and built a fence with an archway inscribed “Martyrs of the Race Course”. 

The commemoration began with a parade led by 3,000 Black schoolchildren carrying flowers and singing “John Brown’s Body,” followed by adults, aid societies, and regiments of Black Union soldiers, including the famed 54th Massachusetts. Black ministers led prayers and hymns. Union officers and missionaries delivered speeches. The graves were decorated with flowers.

The movement gained national momentum in 1868 when General John A. Logan, leader of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization of Union veterans), issued a proclamation designating May 30 as “Decoration Day.” This day was set aside for Americans to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers and remember their sacrifice. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery. 

Initially, Decoration Day was specifically intended to honor those who died in the Civil War. As the United States entered new wars—from World War I and World War II to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan—the meaning of Decoration Day expanded to honor American military personnel who died in all conflicts, not just the Civil War.

In the decades that followed, the name “Memorial Day” gradually came into more common use, particularly after World War II.

In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, moving Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 observance to the last Monday in May. The move was intended to create a three-day weekend for federal employees and encourage national participation. The law went into effect in 1971, the same year Memorial Day was declared an official federal holiday.