Soldiers And Sailors System

African American Civil War museum dedication honors black soldiers

Back in 1962, Frank Smith Jr. left Morehouse College in Atlanta and went to Mississippi as a civil rights activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In Holly Springs, he met a man who turned out to be the descendant of an African American Civil War veteran.

“I found it ironic that a guy whose grandfather had fought to end slavery and preserve the Union was still being treated like a second-class citizen, not even allowed to vote,” Smith told me recently. “So I started reading about the soldiers.”

A seed was planted that would become the African American Civil War Museum and Memorial, which Smith founded in Washington in 1998. On Monday, nearly 50 years after that chance encounter in Mississippi, he’ll preside over the dedication of the museum’s expansion into a renovated school building at 1925 Vermont Ave. NW. It is the largest museum of its kind in the country and the only national memorial to black soldiers who fought in the Civil War.

“The Civil War ought to be one of the things that black people celebrate,” Smith said. “But we tend to think of Confederate flags instead of thinking about those 209,145 black people who fought for freedom and to preserve the union, 23 winning the Congressional Medal of Honor and coming out with three important amendments to the Constitution — the 13th, 14th and 15th — which ended slavery, gave blacks equal protection under the law and black men the right to vote. It was phenomenal.”

Smith, 68, is a native of Newnan, Ga. He moved to the District in January 1968, when he took a job as a researcher with the Institute for Policy Studies. That April, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and riots erupted in the city.

“I started to move back to Mississippi,” Smith said. “These people were burning down their own neighborhoods. I recognized that there was a lot of anger and bitterness, but I don’t think those black Civil War soldiers made the ultimate sacrifices so we could destroy our own homes.”

In 1982, Smith, a Democrat, was elected to the D.C. Council on a platform of providing housing subsidies and tax incentives for businesses. He represented Ward 1, where the museum is located, until 1998. During that time, construction on the Metro subway system’s Green Line began. Many businesses were hurt when streets were torn up to make way for a tunnel.

Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System - FREE Teaching and Learning ...

Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System is a database of over 6 million soldiers and sailors who served on both sides of the Civil War. Search by name, state, unit, or function. See descriptions of 384 significant battles. Find dozens of lesson plans, as well as information about regiments, cemeteries, prisoners, medals of honor, family history, and more. ( National Park Service )

    Interesting Fact: The Civil War touched every person and influenced every institution more profoundly than any other event in American history. Over half a million young Americans gave their lives fighting. Not only were civilians deeply scarred by the war, but no aspect of the society, economy, or political system was spared. To this day, no part of the American past attracts so much continuing interest as the War Between the States.

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