Most people think Memorial Day is about the long weekend. The cookouts, the traffic, the mattress sales. But the history of this day is deeper than that, and if you're African or Black in America, it's closer to home than most people know.
On May 1, 1865, as many as 10,000 formerly enslaved African Americans gathered in Charleston, South Carolina, schoolchildren carrying roses, Black religious leaders, members of Black Union battalions, and marched around a racetrack where Union soldiers had been buried in mass graves. They gave those soldiers a proper burial, built a fence around the site, and held what Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Blight calls the first Memorial Day on record.
Blight wrote: "The war was over, and Memorial Day had been founded by African Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration."
Three years later, in 1868, Major General John A. Logan formally designated May 30 as Decoration Day nationwide. The first national observance was held at Arlington National Cemetery. By 1890, every Northern state had made it an official holiday. But the ceremony that started it all? It was Black people. Freed people. People who had just come through the worst thing imaginable, and still found a way to show up and honor those who died fighting for their freedom.
That origin story was largely suppressed from historical memory. But it belongs to us. And knowing it changes how the day feels.
You don't need a ceremony. You don't need a speech. In most African families, whether you're Ghanaian, Nigerian, Senegalese, Sierra Leonean, Ethiopian, the way you honor a moment is by gathering. You set the table. You cook something good. You sit down together and you eat.
There's something about a shared meal that makes people slow down in a way nothing else really does. Phones go down. Conversations come up. The stories come out, the ones about people who are no longer here, the ones that make you laugh and then catch yourself, the ones you want to make sure the younger ones in the room hear at least once. The uncle who served. The grandmother who didn't live to see you make it here. The ones you carry with you on ordinary days without even realizing it.
That's what this day is actually for; remembering.
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You don't have to do everything yourself. Hosting is already a lot. Hosting and cooking for your whole family is a part-time job on top of everything else you're managing.
Dishout is open today. Here's what that means for you:
Let the kitchen handle it. Pick up jollof, egusi soup, waakye, suya, pepper soup, grilled tilapia, fufu, whatever your people love, and get it delivered straight to your door. Dishout works with African-owned kitchens and restaurants across the diaspora, chefs who grew up eating this food, not just cooking it.
You focus on the people. We handle the food. Order now!
Sometimes the cooking IS the gathering. Somebody's aunt wants to show out in the kitchen. Your mom has been talking about making her version of the stew for three weeks. Let them.
Dishout carries 500+ African groceries, from stockfish and crayfish to ogiri, shea butter, and everything in between. Order ahead, stock the kitchen, and let the cooking become part of the day. Stock up now!
Feeding more than just your immediate household today? Whether you're hosting ten people or five hundred, a backyard cookout, a church basement, a family hall, Dishout's catering can handle it. Every order supports an African-owned business. Eating well and investing in our own at the same time isn't a small thing.
Memorial Day has always been special for Black and African communities in America because we have always been willing to show up, for this country, for each other, for the ones who came before us. That didn't start with a federal holiday. It started with people who had every reason to look away and chose to remember anyway.
So today, whatever you're doing, ordering in, cooking together, gathering with whoever is close , do it with intention. Slow down. Tell the stories. Say the names. Feed the people you love.
That's the most meaningful thing you can do today.
Dishout delivers authentic African food and groceries across New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. African-owned restaurants. Real ingredients. Delivered to your door.
Because home should be just one tap away
