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The spirit of the first Decoration Day — the struggle for Black liberation and the fight against racism — has unfortunately been whitewashed from the modern Memorial Day. #antiracism #blackhistory #usworkingclass

During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the planters’ horse track, the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, into an outdoor prison. Union soldiers were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of exposure and disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. Some 28 black workmen went to the site, re-buried the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

Then, black Charlestonians in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people on the slaveholders’ race course. The symbolic power of the low-country planter aristocracy’s horse track (where they had displayed their wealth, leisure, and influence) was not lost on the freed people. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.”

At 9 a.m. on May 1, the procession stepped off led by 3,000 black schoolchildren carrying armloads of roses and singing “John Brown’s Body.” The children were followed by several hundred black women with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses.

Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantry and other black and white citizens. As many as possible gathered in the cemetery enclosure; a childrens’ choir sang “We’ll Rally around the Flag,” the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and several spirituals before several black ministers read from scripture. (“The First Decoration Day,” Newark Star Ledger)

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On July 12 in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, community members stood victorious against a racist, xenophobic landlord’s attack on a curbside community, as resident describe themselves. #housing #livingconditions #racism

Gorelik’s disgusting performance puts on display the horrific, dehumanizing character of housing under capitalism. Landlords profit from a housing market that forces people to live on the streets through high rents and property rights backed by police terror. In cities like Oakland, poor and working people are being forced out of their homes to make way for wealthier people who can afford to pay the landlords more. This displacement has disproportionately affected Black and other nationally oppressed communities. With nowhere else to go, many Black and Brown people are forced into homelessness or limited housing like the curbside community in Fruitvale.

And the problem is not a few bad landlords like Gorelik. Renting is inherently exploitative because it turns housing, something we all need to survive, into an opportunity to extract from those of us who lack the capacity to buy a home to enrich the already rich. Homelessness is a symptom of capitalism, a system that puts profits before people — the system that enshrines the landlord’s right to profit in the first place.

This Oakland curbside community’s struggle for dignity and respect is not limited to the clownish attacks of a single landlord. At Home Depot’s request, the city of Oakland plans to force residents to leave the lot by December. We must continue to fight!