On the morning of Thursday, May 30, 1968, thousands of people gathered along the streets of Reading for a Memorial Day tradition that would have been instantly recognizable to generations before them.

American flags moved through the city. Veterans marched alongside police officers, civic organizations and public officials. Drum and bugle corps filled the streets with music. High school marching units carried banners through crowds gathered along the sidewalks. Children watched from curbs while families stood several rows deep in places.

The parade began in City Park at 9 a.m., traveled through Reading and ultimately ended at Charles Evans Cemetery, where the festivities gave way to something much more solemn: flowers and wreaths were placed on the graves of veterans.

The Reading Eagle estimated that about 7,000 people watched Reading's Memorial Day parade that year.

The photographs that survive from the period add something newspapers alone cannot. They show the uniforms, flags, spectators, automobiles and storefronts of a Reading and Berks County that has largely disappeared. Among the units visible are the Wilson High School Marching Unit, Central Catholic High School, the Centerport Band, and musicians in traditional Scottish dress.

And in the background are ordinary pieces of 1968 life: theaters, highway signs, parked cars, balloons, neighborhood houses and people dressed for a holiday parade.

It was Memorial Day — but it was also simply another day in Reading in 1968.

Memorial Day Was Still May 30

There is one immediate difference between Memorial Day then and now.

In 1968, Memorial Day was still observed on its traditional fixed date of May 30, regardless of the day of the week. That year it fell on a Thursday.

The timing was especially significant because 1968 marked 100 years since Gen. John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued the order calling for May 30, 1868, to be set aside for decorating the graves of soldiers who had died during the Civil War.

The Reading Eagle reminded its readers of that anniversary in its May 28 edition, printing part of Logan's original appeal and explaining how the observance had expanded from honoring Civil War dead to remembering Americans who had died in all of the nation's wars.

Later in 1968, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act would change the federal observance. Beginning in 1971, Memorial Day would be celebrated on the last Monday in May, creating the familiar three-day weekend.

But in Reading in 1968, Memorial Day still meant May 30.

A Cross-Section of Reading Marched Together

Plans published two days before the parade reveal just how large a community undertaking it was.

The Allied Orders of the Grand Army of the Republic organized Reading's Penn Street parade.

Participants were expected to include representatives of Reading's clergy; the Ladies of the GAR; Greater Reading Post 179, Veterans of Foreign Wars; Gregg Post 12, American Legion; Hunter-Liggett Post 38, VFW; the Reading Buccaneers Drum and Bugle Corps; a Reading police escort; the Police Athletic League Drill Team; city and county officials; United Spanish War Veterans; World War I veterans and widows; service mothers; several drill teams; local VFW posts; and the George Washington Carver American Legion Post.

The Holy Name High School Twirling Corps, American Veterans of World War II, the Pearl Harbor Veterans Association, Girl Scouts and Civil Air Patrol were also among the organizations listed.

It was less a single marching band followed by a few veterans than a moving cross-section of civic Reading.

Police Chief Bernard J. Dobinsky and Mayor Victor R. H. Yarnell marched. County Commissioners Peter Yonavick and Vernon K. Shaffer participated as well.

The colorful photographs make that scale easier to imagine. A line of marchers could seemingly stretch far down the street, with flags rising above white shakos, red uniforms and musical instruments.

One photograph shows the Wilson High Marching Unit of West Lawn approaching beneath a forest of flags. Another captures a band wearing kilts marching through downtown Reading.

The parade was not merely something residents watched.

For hundreds of people, it was something they participated in.

From City Park to the Graves at Charles Evans

The parade's destination explains why the event carried a much different meaning than an ordinary civic parade.

After leaving City Park, the procession eventually reached Charles Evans Cemetery.

There, according to the May 31 Reading Eagle, flowers and wreaths were placed on veterans' graves.

C. Leroy Stoudt, honorary parade marshal, conducted ceremonies at the cemetery's Grand Army of the Republic plot. Officers of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion participated, and attorney Michael J. O'Pake spoke briefly during ceremonies conducted by the United Spanish War Veterans.

District Attorney Robert L. VanHoove delivered the keynote address.

His remarks reflected not only Memorial Day but also the extraordinary political and social atmosphere of 1968. VanHoove called on Americans to rededicate themselves to the principles of the country's founders and warned that patriotism seemed to have become unpopular among some citizens.

His message was essentially that the country faced serious divisions but should respond through faith in its institutions and the nation.

Read more than half a century later, the speech provides a glimpse of how uncertain 1968 must have felt even during a traditional hometown ceremony.

Rain, Thunderstorms and a Chilly Start to Summer

The weather did not entirely cooperate.

The Reading Eagle summarized the following day's story with the headline:

“Memorial Day Rites, Play Cooled By Showers, Chill Temperatures.”

Reading encountered only brief rain during portions of its observance, including a light shower while flowers and wreaths were being placed at Charles Evans Cemetery.

Elsewhere in Berks County, conditions were worse.

A thunderstorm drenched marchers in Sinking Spring and Wernersville, while storms in northern Berks caused flash flooding and property damage.

Memorial Day also traditionally signaled the unofficial beginning of summer. Area swimming pools opened for the season, but the newspaper reported that swimmers were scarce because of the cool and unsettled weather.

So while flags and bands filled Reading's streets, many families contemplating the first swim of summer apparently decided the water could wait.

Memorial Day Across Berks County

Reading was only one part of a much larger countywide observance.

The Reading Eagle reported Memorial Day ceremonies or parades in communities including Birdsboro, Bernville, Boyertown, Fleetwood, Hamburg, Kutztown, Sinking Spring, Topton, Wernersville, Blandon and Amityville.

In Boyertown, American Legion and VFW posts organized a morning parade.

Hamburg's veterans committee scheduled ceremonies at the community park followed by observances at St. John's Cemetery, St. Mary's Cemetery and Greenwood Cemetery.

Bernville planned an afternoon parade featuring units of the Reading Buccaneers along with school bands, fire companies and civic organizations.

Kutztown's American Legion Post 480 organized its traditional parade and services at Fairview Cemetery.

Fleetwood scheduled ceremonies in Fleetwood Park and a 9 a.m. parade.

More than 600 people reportedly attended Frystown's 21st annual Memorial Day program and parade, sponsored by civic organizations and fire companies from western Berks. Music was provided by the Tulpehocken senior and junior high school bands.

It was a day when Memorial Day observances took place almost simultaneously from one end of Berks County to another.

Look Past the Parade and You Can See Everyday Reading

One of the fascinating things about old parade photographs is everything happening behind the parade.

The buildings and businesses were not scenery to the people standing there in 1968. They were simply part of everyday life.

A photograph of marching musicians in downtown Reading, for example, also captures the marquee of the Park Theatre in the background.

Newspaper advertising from that same period shows the Park promoting an adults-only double feature of For Love & Money and The Sweethearts.

At the Embassy Theatre, moviegoers could see something far more familiar to modern audiences: Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes.

The original film had opened earlier in 1968 and was still making its way through theaters around the country.

Today Planet of the Apes is the beginning of one of Hollywood's longest-running franchises.

To a Reading moviegoer in May 1968, it was simply the movie playing downtown.

Phillies Baseball on WEEU

Radio was another major part of daily life.

At the top of the May 31 Reading Eagle appeared a small advertisement:

WEEU 850 — Phillies Baseball Tonight — 7:30 O'Clock.

Someone who had stood along the parade route on Thursday could therefore spend Friday evening listening to the Phillies on local radio.

The Phillies faced the Cincinnati Reds on May 31 and lost 5–4.

There was no streaming service, no smartphone score alert and no social-media feed.

For many Berks County residents, baseball arrived through a radio sitting on a kitchen counter, porch, workbench or automobile dashboard.

And on the Radio: “Mrs. Robinson”

The soundtrack of the weekend was changing too.

On Billboard's chart dated June 1, 1968, just two days after the parade, Simon & Garfunkel's “Mrs. Robinson” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It is easy to imagine the contrast.

Traditional marches and patriotic music filled Penn Street in the morning, while contemporary pop and rock music poured from radios later that day.

That combination — old traditions existing alongside rapidly changing popular culture — may be one of the defining characteristics of 1968.

A Weekend Trip to Dorney Park

Families looking for something to do after Memorial Day had another familiar Pennsylvania option.

A newspaper advertisement from the period promoted Dorney Park near Allentown, which was advertising 28 amusements for young and old, picnic tables and shaded groves.

For Sunday, June 2, the park advertised a free appearance by country-and-western performer Pee Wee King, accompanied by his band and the Collins Sisters.

There was also an annual square-dance jamboree.

It is the kind of advertisement that places the photographs firmly in another era: Memorial Day parades, amusement parks, live country music, family picnics and summer beginning almost simultaneously.

Six Cents to Mail a Letter

Even the simplest pieces of everyday life were different.

Earlier that year, the price of mailing a First-Class letter had increased from five cents to six cents, effective January 7, 1968.

The median American household income for 1968 was approximately $7,700 a year.

Those numbers help put the storefronts, automobiles and families in the photographs into perspective.

This was a world in which nearly everything was done locally and physically: newspapers delivered to the house, letters dropped into mailboxes, movie tickets purchased at theater windows, baseball heard over AM radio and photographs taken on film that might not be developed until days or weeks later.

But Beyond Berks County, 1968 Was Anything but Ordinary

The hometown calm visible in the Memorial Day photographs can obscure what was happening beyond Reading.

America had already experienced one of the most turbulent years in its modern history.

The Tet Offensive had transformed public perceptions of the Vietnam War. On March 31, President Lyndon Johnson stunned the country by announcing that he would not seek another term as president.

Four days later, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

On May 10, only twenty days before Reading's Memorial Day parade, peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam began in Paris.

And less than a week after Reading residents gathered at Charles Evans Cemetery, Robert F. Kennedy would be shot after winning the California Democratic presidential primary and die on June 6.

None of the people standing along the parade route on May 30 could know what was only days away.

That knowledge makes the photographs especially striking.

For a few hours, amid one of the most divisive periods in American history, thousands of Reading residents stood together along the same streets.

One Photograph Can Hold Two Histories

Look closely at these images and there are really two stories taking place.

The first is the official story.

There are veterans, American flags, ceremonies, speeches, marching bands and wreaths placed at graves.

The second story is ordinary life.

People lean against buildings. Children sit along curbs. Teenagers carry school banners. Families watch from lawns. Cars line the street. Balloons float above spectators. A movie marquee advertises the night's entertainment.

Those small details may ultimately be as valuable historically as the parade itself.

They show what Reading looked like when no one in the photograph thought of it as “historic.”

Remembering Memorial Day 1968

The Reading Memorial Day parade of 1968 occurred at an unusual intersection in history.

It came 100 years after the first national Decoration Day proclamation and during one of America's most turbulent years.

It took place when Memorial Day still fell on May 30.

It drew an estimated 7,000 spectators.

Veterans of conflicts stretching back to the Spanish-American War and World War I marched or participated in ceremonies while another generation of Americans was fighting in Vietnam.

School bands marched beside veterans organizations. Public officials walked the route. Flowers were laid on graves at Charles Evans Cemetery.

Then people went home.

Some may have turned on WEEU to hear the Phillies. Others may have gone to the Embassy to see Planet of the Apes. Teenagers could hear “Mrs. Robinson” coming through the radio. Families looked toward summer vacations, swimming pools and perhaps a trip to Dorney Park.

That combination of remembrance and ordinary life is precisely what makes these photographs so compelling nearly six decades later.

They do not merely document a parade.

They capture a day in the life of Reading and Berks County — May 30, 1968 — while history was unfolding all around it.