LET US PAUSE TO GIVE THANKS & THEN LET US GET BACK TO WORK

While the Memorial Day that we celebrate was not observed until later, a Memorial Day was started by former slaves on May, 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp. They dug up the bodies and worked for 2 weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. They then held a parade of 10,000 people led by 2,800 Black children where they marched, sang and celebrated.

While my family's South Carolina roots are in Upstate Cowpens, a great uncle of mine was tasked by the African Methodist Episcopal Church to bring Christianity to the out islands of the South Carolina Low Country. When I was a child travelling south during summer holidays, my great grandmother regaled us with stories of her childhood visits to Uncle Calvin and his AME Church where former slaves developed a way of worshiping God that incorporated things that our ancestors practiced before we were brought here in chains. When grandmom, we never called her great grandmother likewise, we called Ora Brown, our grandmother Moma. These women lived well past 90 and over 100 in one case, and I respect women like these far too much to have questioned why, in my youth and I certainly ain't doing it now.

When I was a college football player, I reported for summer camp one August and saw that a freshman quarterback from Charleston, SC, had joined us. Football summer camp is a dreaded ritual for high school, college and pro football players. You lift weights inside when it is cool outside, run, scrimmage and beat each other up two, sometimes three times a day under the hot sun. The coaches are deciding who will be on the team and who will not, as well as trying to decide what the team's strengths and weaknesses are for the upcoming football season, that is still a month away. We do this while our friends enjoying August and Labor Day at ocean beaches. One of the rituals that breaks up the monotony of summer practice is that while the players are waiting in classrooms where we watch film of our practices or last season's games with the goal of zeroing in on weaknesses and discussing how to fix them, the players have some time to themselves. During that time freshman or rookie football players are asked to stand on chairs, justify their existence, sing their high school fight song and give a three-minute biography of their lives. I asked the quarterback, John Smalls, " Please tell the team why we should hold a certain person in your family in high regard. If you can't do that you will spend your free time on Sunday washing the cars of upper-class defensive lineman.

John Smalls went on to explain that, Robert Smalls, a Charleston slave who was the most skilled & sought after "pilot" in the port of Charleston in the early 1860's. A pilot in this context is a skilled sailor/navigator who boards an oceangoing ship in open water just outside of a seaport. A ship may have sailed from the other side of the world, but the cargo that is on board his ship is destined for a harbor with which the captain cannot possibly be expected to be familiar with. This is as true for New York as it is for Hong Kong or Manchester, Boston, Savanah or Charleston. Late one evening Robert Smalls, my team mates great- great uncle boarded a Confederate ship in Charleston harbor. Under the cover of darkness a number of slaves had boarded the ship. Robert Smalls navigated the ship past Confederate naval vessels as well as cargo ships delivering guns and weapons from Europe to the Confederate states, and loading up with cotton, tobacco, molasses and other goods destined for Europe. Legally this should not have been possible. There was an embargo, but the Union Navy could not be everyplace, and the Atlantic Ocean is very big. Robert Smalls was so trusted and expert that CSA Naval officers, CSA sailors and merchant seamen on ships smiled and waived at him as he navigated his stolen boat full of slaves right out of Charleston harbor and right to a Union Navy flotilla sitting just south of Charleston in the Atlantic Ocean. Robert Smalls went on to become the only Black officer in the Union Navy.

Freshman quarterback Smalls gave us excellent report on his ancestor. The other players applauded, and I washed my own car on Sunday.

We, the descendants of stolen African may not have given birth to the official Day, but we did memorialize a very large group of men, Black & White who left fishing villages in Maine, shops in Boston, farms in Pennsylvania & Ohio, saloons in Brooklyn and travelled south and shed their blood for a great cause. I have walked the battlefields at, Gettysburg, Shilo, Manassas and others. My dad made sure we walked Gettysburg and as we walked toward Cemetery ridge, he would point out what Union of Confederate unit was where during combat far more brutal than even that which he experienced in Europe in 1944. He would ask us, "Why did Pickett's charge fail? "The gap between combat weapons and combat medicine was a far cry from today. When my brother was injured in Iraq, he was flown to an American Army hospital in Germany. aboard a US Air Force C5. At Gettysburg there were piles of arms and legs. Everyplace. The then "new ballistics" did great damage to your limbs and the most important tool in the medical kits of doctors and medics was a saw. My brother was recently memorialized at Arlington National Cemetery. I have visited Arlington many times. Sometimes for funerals and sometimes with clients from overseas who want to see it. I remind them that the hallowed ground that is Arlington was once a plantation, complete with slaves, owned by Robert E, Lee.

As we remember those who those who gave what President Abraham Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion” to their state and nation, it is fitting we all take time, if even for a moment, to reflect on those who gave all for freedom. We have a lot of work to do, but we have come a long way, and we need to thank those who made those who sacrificed to make that possible.