Why the NFL really should study the history of Memorial Day

The NFL sure did pick the worst time (for them) to force anyone into patriotism.

The National Football League recently released their “compromise” statements over players taking a knee during the National Anthem. Spoiler alert: there is no compromise. Team owners and the League have placed both game time and financial penalties for players who take a knee during the anthem emphasizing their belief that these protests disrespect the flag, the anthem, and therefore, the country.

Ugh.

Despite the fact that it is obvious to everyone excluding MAGA that these protests, first initiated by Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid were to bring attention to police brutality in the communities most of the NFL players come from, these changes were made and very clearly exhibited the point that the NFL doesn’t care about Black People, those that watch and support or those that wreck their bodies playing this dangerous sport.

The ironic tie between when the NFL released these erroneous mandates and today is not lost on me. Memorial Day, currently a day to prep for the upcoming summer holidays and shop sales, is actually a holiday to remember those who fought for the freedoms we enjoy as a nation. Freedoms such as the First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.“

A freedom that the NFL is currently infringing upon with their “compromises”.

Memorial Day's unofficial historical roots begin with greed Black slaves. The Washington Post reports “The great Civil War historian James McPherson told the story of a Northern abolitionist who traveled to Charleston, S.C., to organize schools for freed slaves. On May 1, 1865, a year before Waterloo, he led a group of black children to a cemetery for Union soldiers “to scatter flowers on their graves.””

But there is more to this story. It goes like this:

In 1865, post Civil War Charleston, S.C., was a ruin. Many Union soldiers held prisoner in a converted racecourse where the conditions were so bad, at least 250 of those Union captives died. Their bodies were discarded like refuse into a mass grave near the track.

Following the end of the fighting and the release of Black slaves, a group of Black workmen took it upon themselves to dig up those bodies and reburied them to properly honor them.

On May 1, 1865, over 10,000 people comprised of recently freed slaves,  schoolchildren, Black soldiers and allies held what was the first Memorial Day parade around that racetrack. Following the parade, as many as could packed into the new cemetery where scripture was read and flowers were scattered on the unknown soldiers’ graves.

Now that is patriotism. 

Odds are these Black workmen had no personal ties to any of these fallen soldiers, and yet they and their community, before attempting to rebuild their own city, took the time to properly honor those who gave their lives for these Black people to be free.

That is authentic patriotism, Not forcing sports players or anyone else for that matter, to stand for a flag, but honoring those who died for us to have the rights to stand or to sit during the anthem, for us to vote, for us to march, for us to rally together, for us to criticize our government or to run for office.

Real patriotism, that understands that loving ones country goes beyond flags and anthems but into tangible ways to actually make this country live up to its creed, that all people are created equal and are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights.

Like the right to protest inequality. 

Maybe the NFL would do better to simply sticking to sports.