As we reflect on Memorial Day, let us remember the first celebration on May 30, 1868.
By Robert A. Scott, President, 茄子视频
As we reflect on Memorial Day, let us remember the first celebration on听May 30, 1868. On that day, flowers were placed on the graves of Union听AND Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. It is also听fitting that New York was the first state officially to recognize the听holiday, in 1873 – – when, I might add, Adelphi was just ten years old听and 56 years from moving to Garden City.
At a time of great divisions in our nation, with Red States and Blue听States, of incivility in our deliberative bodies and rancor for tv fare, it is听good to remember that Memorial Day was declared by General John听Logan, National Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, as a听day of reconciliation, a “coming together to honor those who gave their听all.”
In 1915, inspired by the poem “In Flanders Field,” Moina Mitchell听replied with her own verse:
We cherish, too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.
I believe that this line, “That blood of heroes never dies” applies not听only to those who died in battle, but also to those who battled for the听rights we now cherish. If, indeed, Memorial Day is about reconciliation,听not about division, then those words must apply equally to Elizabeth听Cady Stanton, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among听others, as well as to fallen soldiers.
This is my hope for this day, and this time, that we can disagree without听being disagreeable, that we can see beyond today’s tactical gain to view听tomorrow’s hopeful plain, and that we can be as large of heart and as听agile of mind as Abraham Lincoln, General Logan, and Moina Mitchell听were in their time.
For further information, please contact:
Todd Wilson
Strategic Communications Director听
p 鈥� 516.237.8634
e 鈥� twilson@adelphi.edu