Photo courtesy of Pxhere
MONDAY, MAY 27: It’s as American as apple pie: hometown parades, ceremonies for fallen soldiers and the smell of barbecues firing up across the country.
It’s Memorial Day. The unofficial start of summer in America began, less than two centuries ago, as a solemn observance for the war that had consumed more lives than any other U.S. conflict. While memorial services still abound, the national holiday also means picnics, beaches, fireworks and, of course, travel, as Americans enjoy a three-day weekend.
AAA’s travel forecast for 2019 says that nearly 43 million of us will hit the road this weekend.
Scroll down in this story to read our best 2019 holiday tips. However, before we list those links, let’s celebrate a tireless historian who helped Americans recover our history of this more-than-150-year-old observance.
A PULITZER FOR THE HOLIDAY’S HISTORIAN
Memorial Day began as an annual, grassroots practice of sprucing up the gravesites of the countless Americans who died during the Civil War. That’s why, for many years, the observance was called Decoration Day, describing the flowers and colorful flags that seemed to sprout across cemeteries each spring.
For much of the 20th Century, however, the painful early roots of this observance were forgotten as proud civic boosters across the country tried to claim their own unique slices of this history. Then, Yale historian David W. Blight researched and corrected the record, finally honoring the fact that the courageous pioneers in observing this holiday were former slaves in the South who dared to decorate Yankee graves. In his history, Race and Reconciliation, Blight writes: “Decoration Day, and the many ways in which it is observed, shaped Civl War memory as much as any other cultural ritual.”
Blight continued to research race and American memory in that era and, this spring, he has been honored with the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in history for his in-depth biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.
MEMORIAL DAY and CIVIL RELIGION
The famed sociologist of American religion, Robert Bellah, also shaped the evolution of Memorial Day’s meaning in a landmark article he published in a 1967 issue of Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He called his long article “Civil Religion in America,” taking the centuries-old concept of “civil religion” and kicked off decades of fresh research into how our civil religion defines our American culture. You can read Bellah’s entire original article online.
A few lines from Bellah’s article about Memorial Day …
Until the Civil War, the American civil religion focused above all on the event of the Revolution, which was seen as the final act of the Exodus from the old lands across the waters. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were the sacred scriptures and Washington the divinely appointed Moses who led his people out of the hands of tyranny.
Then—The Civil War raised the deepest questions of national meaning. The man who not only formulated but in his own person embodied its meaning for Americans was Abraham Lincoln. For him the issue was not in the first instance slavery but “whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.” … With the Civil War, a new theme of death, sacrifice, and rebirth enters the new civil religion. It is symbolized in the life and death of Lincoln. Nowhere is it stated more vividly than in the Gettysburg Address, itself part of the Lincolnian “New Testament” among the civil scriptures.
MEMORIAL DAY? ISN”T THAT A SALE?
The vast majority of Memorial Day news stories in 2019 cover two themes: Travel advice for the millions of American families who hit the road each spring over the holiday weekend—and tips on where to find the biggest bargains in annual “Memorial Day Blowout” sales.
NBC News has an example of the latter in a story headlined The Best 2019 Memorial Day Sales and Deals. What does the holiday mean? You can save tons of money on everything from fancy rugs and mattresses—to egg cookers. NBC is hardly alone! The New York Post‘s holiday story zeroes in on the best deals in fashion and accessories. Then, naturally WIRED focuses on deals in “Tech and Gaming.” Esquire follows suit with an overview of electronics you can snap up on Amazon at holiday discounts. And, FORTUNE has a long list of businesses and public institutions that are closing for the holiday—and those making a point of staying open.
Check local media, or search Google News for your destination, to find up-to-date travel advice. Some National Parks are bracing for massive crowds. Others may not be entirely open yet, due to snow in high elevations. The National Park Service directs visitors interested in Memorial Day to this page.
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