NATCHEZ — On 10 a.m. Oct. 26, the Miss-Lou Grand Army of the Republic will present the Twelfth Annual Black and Blue Civil War Living History Program at  Historic Jefferson College rain or shine.

The program will focus on raising public awareness about the not-so surprisingly forgotten history of self-emancipated (runaways) enslaved civil war Union veterans’ of the Department of Mississippi and Louisiana Grand Army of the Republic and its Women Relief Corps Auxiliary. “The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a  fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union military who had served in the American Civil War (1861-1865),” said Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-CM Boxley. “Many national organizations of Union veterans sprouted-up after the Civil War ended. However the Grand Army of the Republic was the largest and most powerful of these groups of Union veterans in the United States.”

Founded on April 6, 1866, at Decatur, Illinois, by former army surgeon Benjamin Franklin Stephenson, its proclaimed purpose was Fraternity, Charity, and Loyalty, and its basic unit was the local posts, with membership theoretically open to any honorably discharged Unionveteran.Asanauxiliary in support of the GAR a national women’s organization called “Women’s Relief Corps (WRC) was officially chartered in 1883. It is still very much active today and is said to be the “oldest national women’s patriotic organization in America,” Boxley said. “The WRC began as a group intended to serve as auxiliary to the GAR, and we still maintain that identity.”

Our 12th Blacks & Blue program is designed to help all of us Remember Why History Has Forgotten the Civil War’s African descent veterans who were the builders of the Miss-Lou “African Americans Community.”