“So the last will be first, and the first last.” — John 20:16 KJV
The African American Civil War Memorial Wall of Honor, which lists the names of 209,145 Black soldiers and their white officers, was recently recognized by Guinness World Records as having Most Names on a War Memorial. Now, we have reason to celebrate the extremely arduous job of entering the hundred of thousands of names into a database.
Frank Smith, founding director of the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation, sought congressional authority and partnered with the D.C. government and the public to raise the money to build the Memorial Wall of Honor.
“We have worked hard since 1991 to research the names and place them on stainless steel plaques for all to see and the Guinness recognition makes the recognition worldwide.” Smith said in a statement. “At a time when America is debating the great values of democracy, it is good to have international recognition for the USCT, many of whom gave what President Lincoln would call ‘Their Full Measure’ in defense of Freedom and Union in the American Civil War.”
Brianne Nadeau, D.C. Council member in Ward 1 where the monument is located, called the Guinness recognition “truly great for our own institution that so comprehensively recognizes the Black Union soldiers and their white allies of the Civil War. Now the entire world may fully understand its importance.”
The African American Civil War Memorial Wall of Honor, located at Vermont Avenue and U Street in northwest Washington, sits on federal land and is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. The memorial is accompanied by a museum that sits across the street and is currently closed for a $8 million renovation scheduled to be completed this fall.
As the project director, appointed by then-D.C. Council member Smith, the mastermind behind this historic idea, I was honored by the National Park Service with the first-place award for typing the most names into the Wall of Honor database and I was also responsible for coordinating volunteers to work for months getting all names entered into the computer database.
Volunteers came to help from churches, sororities (particularly Gamma Phi Delta Sorority, Inc., Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Alpha Kappa Alpha and AKAs) and the National Council of Negro Women. Plus, D.C. Council members sent out recruitment memos throughout the various wards of the city, soliciting public volunteers.
The volunteers worked from boxes of records sent to us by the Family Search Library, located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Those records were sent to the library in Utah by the National Archives and Records Administration, headed by the late Dr. Walter Hill, working in partnership with the National Park Service headquarters, and the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (CWSS), a database introduced by National Park Service officials to the African American Civil War Memorial during the early days of planning construction for the “Spirit of Freedom” memorial.
Other information on the site includes histories of Union and Confederate regiments, links to descriptions of significant battles, and selected lists of prisoner-of-war records and cemetery records, which will be amended over time. The CWSS is a cooperative effort between the National Park Service and several public and private partners aiming to increase understanding of this decisive era in American history by making information about it widely accessible.
Smith, who during the planning and implementation phase was also the D.C. Council member representing Ward 1, was adamant about having the names of these Black soldiers indisputably authenticated. He worked with the National Park Service, asking if these Black soldiers and sailors could be input into the new system first. The National Park Service agreed, and Smith and his board of directors and staff were off and running!
After several meetings, Dr. Smith was introduced to John Peterson, who at the time was responsible for the Civil War Soldier System, which contained information about the men who served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War.
That’s who I worked with for the entire time — John Peterson, a man of integrity and honor! The blessing for us was that they agreed to begin this project by placing all of the names of the United States Colored Troops into the Civil War Soldier System, since it was a smaller number (209,145, including the white officers). After many months of data entry, the proofreading by the National Park Service began. The names were engraved onto metal plaques, installed on the Wall of Honor and later unveiled before a record crowd — now they are in the Guinness World Records!
We were quite a dynamic partnership, which later included Robert Stanton, the 15th and first African American director of the National Park Service. He was approved by the Senate and sworn in on Aug. 4, 1997. All of us worked together on behalf of the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation, Inc.
With the historic Guinness World Records recognition, the African American Civil War Memorial Wall of Honor is now authenticated as THE war memorial containing the most names of any war memorial in the world. Congratulations!
The Guinness recognition can be viewed at https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/763643-most-names-on-a-war-memorial.
Lyndia Grant is a speaker/writer living in the D.C. area. Her radio show, “Think on These Things,” airs Fridays at 6 p.m. on 1340 AM (WYCB), a Radio One station. To reach Grant, visit her website, www.lyndiagrant.com, email lyndiagrantshowdc@gmail.com or call 240-602-6295. Follow her on Twitter @LyndiaGrant and on Facebook.