John A. Logan

The First Official Memorial Day May 1868 Do you celebrate Memorial Day? In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the grand Army of the Republic issued what was called General Order Number 11, designating May 30 as a memorial day. He declared it to be “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.” Where do you suppose that first Memorial Day took place? The first national celebration of Memorial Day (originally Decoration Day) took place May 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery. The national observance of Memorial Day still takes place there today, with the placing of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the decoration of each grave with a small American flag. The holiday has changed a bit since it first began, which some argue was even earlier than Logan’s dedication. Southern women decorated the graves of soldiers even before the end of the Civil War. After the war, a women’s memorial association in Columbus, Mississippi, put flowers on the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers in 1866, an act of generosity that inspired the poem by Francis Miles Finch, “The Blue and the Grey,” published in the Atlantic Monthly. In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended it to honor all those who died in American wars. People pay tribute not only with flowers but also with speeches and parades. Whom do you honor on Memorial Day? americaslibrary.gov/jb/recon/

So, #DedicationDay seems to have been swept under a rug… the fact is, African Americans created Memorial Day

While not in China itself, the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed by the U.S. Congress on May 6, 1882 and signed by President Chester A. Arthur, was a landmark event tied to Chinese–American relations Britannica+1.

It was the first major U.S. law to explicitly ban immigration for a specific nationality — Chinese laborers — and prohibited them from entering the United States for ten years. The act also barred Chinese immigrants from naturalization and imposed strict requirements for those already in the country National Archives+1.

Background

• Economic and racial tensions: Anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S., especially in California, was fueled by competition for jobs, resentment over wages, and cultural stereotypes Office of the Historian.
• Historical context: Chinese laborers had migrated to the U.S. since the 1848 California Gold Rush, working in mining, railroads, and agriculture. Many sent remittances back to China, but faced discrimination and legal restrictions History+1.
• Diplomatic impact: The exclusion act strained U.S.–China relations, as it was the first time federal law targeted an ethnic group for immigration control Office of the Historian.

Effects

• On Chinese communities: Families were separated, businesses closed, and Chinatowns became centers of cultural preservation Britannica.
• On U.S. immigration policy: It marked a shift from open immigration to restrictive quotas, later extended by the Geary Act (1892) and made permanent in 1902 National Archives.
• Long-term: The act was repealed in 1943 with the Magnuson Act, allowing an annual quota of 105 Chinese immigrants, but quotas for other nationalities had already been established Britannica+1.

Summary

In 1882, China saw diplomatic moves like the China–Korea Treaty, while the United States enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act — a pivotal moment in U.S. immigration history and a turning point in Sino–American relations. Both events reflected the broader 19th-century tensions between economic competition, racial prejudice, and the limits of immigration policy.

Stop AAPI Hate, nonprofit organization that works to protect the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in the United States. It tracks and analyzes acts of violence and discrimination against the AAPI community to understand where disturbances are occurring and who is being targeted. This analysis helps to raise national awareness about racism.

Source: Britannica

So, on May 1, 1865

A day that has been skipped in Black History finally comes to light! Decoration Day, some say Dedication Day … both are right, and while it is an interesting look at history… it is also a solemn reminder of how patriotic African Americans are still shut out

~ Nativegrl

   

On May 30, 1942, Fred Korematsu is arrested in San Leandro, California for resisting internment under President Franklin Roosevelt’s controversial Executive Order 9066, which called for the incarceration of nearly all Japanese Americans in the United States in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Following his conviction and incarceration in a Utah camp, Korematsu—then 23—filed suit in federal court. His case eventually wound up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1944 upheld the government’s claim that the incarceration was a matter of “military urgency.”

In 1983, however, a federal judge reversed Korematsu’s conviction for evading internment, ruling a “great wrong” done to him. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan issued a public apology on behalf of the government and authorized reparations for former Japanese American internees or their descendants.

Scholars and judges have denounced the Korematsu Supreme Court ruling as among the worst in the court’s history.

In 2011, an acting U.S. solicitor—the federal government’s top courtroom attorney—ruled a predecessor deliberately hid from the court a report from the Office of Naval Intelligence that concluded the Japanese Americans posed no military threat. In Trump v. Hawaii in 2018, the Supreme Court effectively overturned the Korematsu decision, calling it as “gravely wrong the day it was decided.”

In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu, a staunch civil rights advocate, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. He died in 2005 at the age of 86. 

On January 30, 2011, California celebrated its first “Fred Korematsu Day”—the first day named after an Asian American in the United States.  Fred Korematsu challenged the legality of Executive Order 9066 but the Supreme Court ruled the action was justified as a wartime necessity. It was not until 1988 that the U.S. government attempted to apologize to those who had been interned.

Fred Korematsu decided to test the government relocation action in the courts. He found little sympathy there. In Korematsu vs. the United States, the Supreme Court justified the executive order as a wartime necessity. When the order was repealed, many found they could not return to their hometowns. Hostility against Japanese Americans remained high across the West Coast into the postwar years as many villages displayed signs demanding that the evacuees never return. As a result, the interns scattered across the country.

Source: history.com