MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A historical marker commemorating the “massacre” of hundreds of U.S. Colored Troops who fought in the American Civil War at the Battle of Fort Pillow in Henning, Tenn., was vandalized on Aug. 7, 2024, at Memphis National Cemetery, 3568 Townes Ave.
Dr. Callie Herd was livid when she was notified by the director of the cemetery that vandals had decapitated the marker. But then she couldn’t believe that someone would be so brazen that they would seek to destroy history.
The historical marker was erected to call attention to the colored troops who were “killed or mortally wounded” on April 12, 1864. Many of them, Herd said, were buried in more than 100 unnamed graves at the cemetery.
“I don’t know if it was unintentional or if somebody was actually trying to break it,” said Herd, an educator, senior programmer for FedEx, and vice-president of the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc.
The historical marker was first unveiled in 2018 during a ceremony sponsored by the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc., an umbrella organization advocating for responsible social entrepreneurism and activism via the arts, media, and education.
With support from the Memphis chapter of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), Joe Williams, whose great-great grandfather, Peter Williams, survived the massacre, the unveiling was one of the signature events for Juneteenth that year.
Herd and her son, Ronald C. Herd II, first began honoring the victims of the Fort Pillow massacre in 2016. He is the president of the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc. The colored troops were lost to history until the Herds decided to tell their story.
But all is not lost. Herd solicited help to pay for a replacement marker. Shelby County Commissioner Henri E. Brooks, who represents District 7, and Commissioner Mickell M. Lowery, representing District 8, answered her call.
“So those two raised the funds for us to redo the marker,” Herd said. “She (Brooks) didn’t think that it should be repaired, but redone.”
Herd said the people whom she had contacted were devastated at the thought of the marker getting destroyed. It was Brooks, she noted, who encouraged her to file a police report with the Memphis Police Department.
Since the damaged marker bears the seal of the Bureau of Colored Troops (1863-1867), U.S. Army Artillery, Herd filed another application, this time with the Shelby County Historical Commission at Brooks’ behest.
“By it being destroyed, it helped us to get the seal that we wanted from the start,” Herd said. “That way it’s validated as a historical landmark rather than just us doing it by ourselves.”
The language on the marker reads in part: “Eyewitnesses reported that black soldiers were killed despite putting down their weapons and surrendering in what the North deemed a massacre.”
The word “massacre” elicited a debate in some circles. Should it be used to describe many of the “179,000 African-American soldiers who fought to free the country from the scourge of slavery?”
“It was a massacre,” Brooks contends. “If it (language) is not accurate, it’s not history.”
Herd said the replacement marker has been approved and the paperwork has been started. Someone told her, she said, that the marker will take about six or seven months to complete.
“We want to reinstall the marker on Juneteenth of 2025,” she said.
Brooks said without reservation that if the replacement marker is damaged again or destroyed, she’d replace it again and again.
“Remember Fort Pillow” is inscribed on the historical marker in a bold font. Herd hopes the cemetery will continue to honor the U.S. Color Troops long after she’s gone.
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