By Mike Magee
According to Veteran administration HistoriansThe origin of Memorial Day dates from 1864 when three women from Boalsburg, Pennsylvania participated in grief to decorate the graves of family members who died in the civil war. A year later, other city dwellers came along and a year later, in 1866, women in Columbus, Mississippi, at the event, in honor of fallen soldiers. That was 14 years after the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852.
In that first year it was published, Uncle Tom’s Cabin Sold more than 300,000 copies. Author and critic Alfred Casino called it “the most powerful and most sustainable work ever written about American slavery.” Its fame in the American Lexicon speaks for itself, and its relevance with regard to goodness and administration, leadership through legislation, the role of women in creating social societies and the foundation of Christianity in the non -realized potential of the American dream all speak to the constant value of the publication.
On page 2 of the preface, Harriet Beecher Stowe Comments about ‘commemorating’ of human hatred and cruelty for the Ash Bin of History. She writes: “It is a comfort to hope, because so many of the sorrows and mistakes of the world, from age to age, have been lived, so a time will come when sketches are similar to these only valuable if memorials of what is no longer a long time.”
We have to respond to this today: “Not yet. There is work that remains.”
On the last page of her book, Harriet Beecher Stowe In 1852 reflects (as if on our modern perilous situation): “This is an era of the world when nations are vibrating and continuing. A powerful influence abroad, the world rises and increases, as with an earthquake. And is America safe? Every nation that is large and not in the elements of the latter conflict in its bosom.”
We must respond to believers in human goodness and democracy: “We will never be free, safe and healthy if our chosen leaders promote policy – here or abroad – who believe our finer instincts, promote fear and cause predation.”
Until recently, the White House has largely been a sacred and cherished sanctuary. In 2013, our president organized our former president at the time, Barack Obama, George HW Bush and his family there to commemorate the 5000th prize of a “daily point of light”, which is the first President was launched To “honor people who demonstrate the transforming power of services, and who have an important and persistent impact due to their daily actions and words that light the path for other light points.”
Here is partly what President Obama That day said: “Given the humility that your life has defined, I suspect that it is harder for you to see something that is clear to everyone around you, and that is how clear a light shines you – how your vision and example have lit the path for so many others, how your love for a good and as good and as good as a good and as well as is a good and as well as a good and as well and as well and as well and as well and as well and as well as a good and as well as a good and as well as a good and as well as a good and as well as a good and as well as a good and as well as a good and as well as a good and as well as a good as a good and a good as well and a good as well and a good as well and a good as well and a good as well and a good as well and a good and one and a good as well and a good as well and a good as well and a good and one and a good as well and a good and one and a good as well and a good and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and good and one and good and one and good and one and good and one and good and one and good and good and way and one and good one and one and one and one and one and one. Good.
Only a dozen years ago it seemed to be publicly ‘thanked’. And ‘active citizenship’ As a member of this great nation, many – most – became a duty and an honor – even to the point to sacrifice someone’s life in the defense of this nation.
After all, that is what Memorial Day commemorates. Action is required, as goodness and virtue is through example and daily behavior.
We continue to struggle in the shadow of the cabin of Uncle Tom. We have no perfection, but we could and should certainly do better. Because, to be healthy in America, to realize our full potential, to be civilized, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson Said: “To make up for the cause of freedom against slavery, you must be … Declaration of independence.”
Mike Magee MD is a medical historian and a regular contribution to THCB. He is the author of Blue code: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex. (Grove/2020)
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