The History of Arlington National Cemetery is the Story of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness
I’ve never broken a national news story before. The story of Arlington National Cemetery’s deleted webpages is now national news and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Yesterday I talked with reporters from both The Washington Post and The New York Times and invitations to appear on radio are now beginning to come in.
I want to thank all of you for sharing this story and helping to make this happen. Never forget that our federal government works for us. We have a responsibility as citizens to remain vigilant and to speak out when necessary.
Don’t Lose Sight of the Real Story
While I am pleased with the attention this story is now receiving, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that the history of Arlington National Cemetery is a story of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness. This history ought to be embraced by all of us and front and center at places like Arlington.
There is no better place to immerse yourself in this story than Section 27. The first burial at Arlington was William Henry Christman, who was laid to rest there on May 13, 1864. Christman served in a Pennsylvania regiment and had died of disease in a Washington D.C. hospital. He was white.
However, in the years following the Civil War roughly 1,500 United States Colored Troops were buried in this section of the cemetery, known then as the “lower cemetery.”
In addition to the Black soldiers, just under 4,000 African American men, women, and children who had flocked to the nation’s capital as refugees during the war are buried there as well. Some of these individuals lived at Arlington after the war in what became known as Freedmen’s Village. African Americans formed a vibrant community and for a time constituted a significant voting bloc in Arlington County, Virginia.
Some of these grave markers are identified as “unknown,” “civilian,” or “citizen.”
The people buried in Section 27 are a reminder of this nation’s complicated history of racism and discrimination, but they are also a reminder of a refusal to bend to the racial status quo of the time. We might even champion the people buried here as DEI warriors.
Many Black soldiers understood that their military service constituted a claim to equal treatment and even the rights of citizenship in a reunited nation.
In urging Black men to volunteer to enlist in 1863, Frederick Douglass made explicit the connection between military service and citizenship: “To fight for the [U.S.] Government in this tremendous war is, then, to fight for nationality and for a place with all other classes of our fellow citizens.”
Corporal James Henry Gooding, who served in the 54th Massachusetts wrote to President Abraham Lincoln on September 28, 1863, just two months after the regiment’s failed assault at Battery Wagner.
We appeal to You, Sir: as the Executive of the Nation, to have us Justly Dealt with. The Regt, do pray, that they be assured their service will be fairly appreciated, by paying them as american SOLDIERS, not as menial hierlings. Black men You may well know, are poor, three dollars per month, for a year, will suply their needy Wives, and little ones, with fuel. If you, as chief Magistrate of the Nation, will assure us, of our whole pay. We are content, our Patriotism, our enthusiasm will have a new impetus, to exert our energy more and more to aid Our Country. Not that our hearts ever flagged, in Devotion, spite the evident apathy displayed in our behalf, but We feel as though, our Country spurned us, now we are sworn to serve her.
Writing from Massachusetts after enlisting in the 55th Massachusetts, Samuel Cabble wrote to his wife, who was still enslaved in North Carolina:
Dear Wife i have enlisted in the army i am now in the state of Massachusetts but before this letter reaches you i will be in North Carlinia and though great is the present national dificulties yet i look forward to a brighter day When i shall have the opertunity of seeing you in the full enjoyment of fredom i would like to no if you are still in slavery if you are it will not be long before we shall have crushed the system that now opreses you for in the course of three months you shall have your liberty. great is the outpouring of the colered peopl that is now rallying with the hearts of lions against that very curse that has seperated you an me yet we shall meet again and oh what a happy time that will be when this ungodly rebellion shall be put down and the curses of our land is trampled under our feet i am a soldier now and i shall use my utmost endeavor to strike at the rebellion and the heart of this system that so long has kept us in chains . . . remain your own afectionate husband until death-Samuel Cabble
Thousands of Black women, according to historian Holly Pinheiro, publicly forced the U.S. government to acknowledge their claims to U.S. citizenship by applying for pensions, beginning in 1864, generations before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Black military service, the defeat of the Confederacy, and preservation of the Union forced the nation to consider their claims to the rights of full citizenship. Consider this wood engraving, published in Harpers Weekly on August 5, 1865.
At left, the symbol of American liberty, Columbia, contemplates the wisdom of granting former Confederate generals and politicians a pardon. At right, an African American man who lost a limb fighting for the Union is not permitted to vote. "Shall I trust these men," Columbia asks of the former Confederates and "not this man?" who suffered for the Union. The stripes of the tattered American flag behind the black soldier bear the words "Fort Pillow," a battle that resulted in a massacre of African American soldiers by Confederates, and "Fort Wagner."
The story of Section 27 is a story of freedom, progress, and ultimately betrayal. At the same time, however, their stories were never entirely forgotten. They fueled and gave hope to future generations, who once again, chose to answer their nation’s call in its hour of need.
African Americans contined to serve their country and they continued to die for it. Burials at Arlington National Cemetery remained segregatd by race and rank. It wasn’t until 1948 that the cemetery—like the military—was finally integrated.
How We Remember Our History Matters
I’ve pointed out many times that how we remember and commemorate our history in public spaces shapes how we view ourselves in relationship to others. Our commemorative spaces represent the values that we as a community and even as a nation claim to uphold. All Americans hope to see themselves in these spaces that at their best strengthen bonds of citizenship, community, and identity.
The failure to do so makes it much easier for one group to distance itself from another and even to deny the other the full rights and privileges of citizenship. Erasing and distorting the history of the struggle for civil rights and citizenship for so many marginalized groups makes it easier to dismiss those very same demands today.
Take a look at this screenshot from Arlington National Cemetery’s website that was published by Task & Purpose the other day.
At the top is the original webpage on which lesson plans/modules focusing on African American history were located and below is the revised page, which is now hidden. Notice the change?
The Trump administration (our government) does not want you to know that African Americans, who have fought for and in many cases died for this nation, going back to the American Civil War, were also fighting for “racial justice.”
The men and women buried in Arlington National Cemetery did not serve or give their lives for one man. They served a nation. Each of us has a responsibility to fight for their legacy and sacrifice. Their history belongs to all of us.
One wonders if Trump is aware at all that Lincoln's last public address on April 11, 1865 was in support of Black soldiers who had fought for the Union in the Civil War. It was that speech, in particular, that incited Booth to pursue his murderous, vile plot. You can't claim you revere Lincoln without acknowledging how his quest for civil rights (such as they were in 1865) led to his untimely and tragic death. Is that now too woke a story for this administration to accept?!
I shudder to think the lengths this administration will go to in order to retell history, what their myriad political ends are, and what the ultimate costs will be. But for those of us who care deeply about our hard-fought past and our complex present, he will not stop us - he will only embolden us to keep learning and teaching truth. Thanks for all you are doing to raise our awareness of this issue and all of the administration's assaults on public history.
Well-deserved praise for Kevin!
The first seven Japanese interred in Arlington were among the 300 blown up aboard the USS Maine in Havana Harbor. It was about 1960 when I saw their names on the Memorial.
I can't say these seven were "Japanese Americans" because Japanese immigrants like these seven, and my grandfather, were barred by law from American citizenship. Like the seven, my grandfather had enlisted in the US Navy, the USS Kearsarge in New York.
Now, let's see if Hegseth will scrub their names off this monument, too.