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Christopher Webb@cwebbonline · May 25, 2026

I didn’t know about the earliest origin of Memorial Day until I was a grown-ass man, and it’s because some folks…

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Summary

A thread exploring how Memorial Day's origins in Black Americans' efforts to honor Union soldiers has been deliberately obscured from history. In 2021, an Ohio ceremony organizers muted a speaker discussing this forgotten history, illustrating ongoing erasure of Black contributions to American traditions.

Summarized by ThreadOut AI from the full thread. May miss nuance — read the thread below.

  1. #1

    I didn’t know about the earliest origin of Memorial Day until I was a grown-ass man, and it’s because some folks didn’t want us to. In 2021, organizers at an Ohio Memorial Day ceremony muted retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter for nearly two minutes the moment he began discussing how formerly enslaved Black Americans exhumed the remains of Union soldiers to give them proper burials. 🧵

  2. #2

    Officials from the local American Legion post deliberately cut the audio. The mic worked fine until Black history entered the story. Here’s the story of Memorial Day’s Black roots…