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The Van Buren Press
Van Buren, Crawford County, Arkansas
What is this article about?
Mr. Geo. T. Downing reports shameful racial discrimination in Decoration Day ceremonies at Arlington Cemetery, with separate exercises for white and colored soldiers; the black soldiers' graves honored in a desolate hollow without flags, monuments, seats, water, or music, unlike the white section.
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I this week again contributed to honor the dead, but to my great mortification I learned that there were two distinct orders of exercises, one for the white and one for the colored soldiers; two discharges of artillery, the exercises for the blacks to take place, as the papers stated, "at the close of the exercises at the National Cemetery at Arlington."
We went, after the first celebration, to the hollow where lay the despised black hero, with no flag, no trophy, no monument, like those which mark the spot where the white hero lies: nothing but common broad flat field of earth, its headboards, marks the desolate spot; no seats were there, no water, no music. For those at the ceremony for whites stand for speakers; such as was and white visitors repaired to the mansion strew flowers "over" graves.
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Domestic News Details
Primary Location
Arlington Cemetery
Event Date
This Week
Key Persons
Outcome
unequal treatment in ceremonies: separate exercises for white and colored soldiers, with black soldiers' graves in a desolate area lacking flags, trophies, monuments, seats, water, and music.
Event Details
Mr. Geo. T. Downing writes of observing two distinct orders of exercises at the decoration ceremonies, one for white soldiers with amenities and one for colored soldiers in a hollow with minimal markings; whites had stands for speakers and strewed flowers at the mansion.