Saturday, May 5, 2018, Stones River National Battlefield
On May 1, 1865, newly freed African Americans, soldiers, and white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina gathered at the Washington Race Course & Jockey Club to decorate the graves of Union soldiers buried there and celebrate the end of a conflict that gave our nation, “a new birth of freedom.”
This first Decoration Day sparked a tradition in African American communities across the nation, including Murfreesboro’s Cemetery Community, of simultaneously celebrating freedom while honoring the sacrifices that purchased it.
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