May Day at Massie

May Day, the traditional welcoming of spring, will be celebrated on May 12, 2008 at 10:00 A.M. in Calhoun Square in front of the historic Massie School.  Students from the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System will participate in the festivities by performing ethnic dances from around the world.  Massie School’s May Day celebration has evolved into one of the largest multicultural events in our school system.

Massie’s May Day festival is a long-standing Savannah tradition.  An 1850’s article in The Daily Morning News described May Day as “this day which has from time immemorial been observed as the Festival of the Floral Season.”  During the traumas of recovery from the Civil War, the May 3, 1866 issue of The Daily News Herald reported: “The return of the favorite holiday, the first of May, though not marked with all the festivity and merrymaking of other days, was yet celebrated with considerable spirit by a large portion of the community.”

May Day in Calhoun Square, a tradition as old as the school itself, is an important part of the Heritage Education program at Massie Heritage Interpretation Center.  Appropriate music, a graceful queen and her court, colorful dances, and Maypoles decorated in pink and white are the scene in Calhoun Square on May Day.

Watch our
2007 May Day Celebration
Video

May Day Resources