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Obama's Memorial Day controversy plus 5 books on black soldiers
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The Memorial Day holiday was created first to commemorate the soldiers who died during America's Civil War, and that recognition should include black soldiers in the Civil War. Later the holiday expanded to include fallen soldiers from later wars.
Well, this is a holiday the whole nation can get behind in every way, right? Honor dead heroes who fought for freedom, eat a little Bar-b-que, drink a few beers, and move on.
Wrong! What's an American holiday without a little controversy? Memorial Day is no different, and a little hornet's nest is lodged in this year's celebration because for the first time the presidential tradition of sending a wreath to Arlington's Confederate Memorial will be carried out by the nation's first African-American president.
The question for this upcoming Memorial Day is whether Barack Obama will continue the traditional offering or put a stop to it. Will the first African American to occupy our highest office honor the soldiers of a short-lived, breakaway nation formed for the express purpose of preserving the institution of black slavery on this continent? (Keith Savage at The Washington Post, May 23)
Savage goes on to make some cogent points and then gives advice to the president:
President Obama, why not send two wreaths? One to the Confederate Memorial in Arlington Cemetery and another to the African American Civil War Memorial in the District, which commemorates the 200,000 black soldiers who fought for liberation from slavery in the Union armed forces.
Savage, a University of Pittsburgh professor and author of Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, concludes that two wreaths would send one message, "that the descendants of slaves and the descendants of slaveholders should recognize each other's humanity, and do the hard work of reckoning with the racial divide that is slavery's cruelest and most enduring legacy."
That's a tall order since some of those slave owners' descendants still refuse to admit their ancestors were wrong to enslave black people. Nevertheless, recognizing each other's humanity could be a start. Whether the president will take Savage's advice and send two wreaths has not been revealed, but Obama will not buckle to pressure to stop sending a wreath to the Confederate memorial.
This article takes no position on the tradition, but reminds book lovers who may want to know more about African-Americans in wartime that black soldiers also fought for American freedom, sometimes freedoms from which they and their families did not benefit.
Thanks to an effective education campaign, many Americans know of the brave African-American pilots who fought in World War II known as the Tuskegee Airmen. However, as indicated in the first paragraph, African-Americans were on the battlefield in the name of American Freedom long before those courageous barrier breakers. For instance, children with good history teachers should have learned by the time they reach third grade of Crispsus Attucks, a black man generally recognized as the first person to die in the American Revolution.
The following is a list of five books that tell the stories of black American troops.
- American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm by Gail Lumet Buckley and David Halberstam. Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks. Pub. Year: 2002. PP. 608. Ages Grade 7 and up. $12.75. "Buckley originally wrote Patriots for an adult audience, and this abridgment is still a deeply moving and inspiring account of the history of African Americans in the U.S. military and their unrecognized heroism in the face of overt racism." School Library Journal
- Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride. Republished by Riverhead Trade in 2008 as a tie-in with the movie directed by Spike Lee. $5.00 paperback, 320 pp. "McBride offers a powerful and emotional novel of black American soldiers fighting the German army in the mountains of Italy around the village of St. Anna of Stazzema in December 1944. This is a refreshingly ambitious story of men facing the enemy in front and racial prejudice behind; it is also a carefully crafted tale of a mute Italian orphan boy who teaches the American soldiers, Italian villagers and partisans that miracles are the result of faith and trust." Publisher's Weekly.
- Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII's Forgotten Heroes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anthony Walton. Published by Broadway in paperback, 2005, 336 pp., $14.95. This book is headed to the big screen. Director, actor, and producer Denzel Washington recently hired a writer for the screenplay.
- The Negro's Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union by James M. McPherson. Published by Vintage, 400 pp., 2003, paperback $14.95. "McPherson shatters the belief that [blacks] were passive about their freedom. His evidence is telling and, what is more, it is absorbingly retold." The New York Times
- Black Union Soldiers in the Civil War by Hondon B. Hargrove. Published by McFarland, 2003, 250 pp. $35. Like McPherson's book, "this book refutes the historical slander that blacks did not fight for their emancipation from slavery."
Have a pleasant Memorial Day as this nation remembers the blood spilled to protect our freedoms.
Extra Info: The following video is about Buffalo Soliders, black soldiers of the U.S. Calvary.
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