Q: In the past, Savannah has hosted a Georgia Day Parade. What is the parade about and is it happening this year?
A: Savannah's annual Georgia Day Parade is part of the Georgia History Festival, a six-month educational program run by the Georgia Historical Society.
From September until February, the society hosts events to teach K-12 students about Georgia history.
On Feb. 9, the parade will celebrate one of the biggest dates in the state’s history—the day Georgia was established as a British colony by Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe and the 114 colonists who settled in the area around Savannah on Feb. 12, 1733.
This year, more than 3,000 children from Savannah-area schools are expected to march from Forsyth Park along about a mile of Bull Street to City Hall, said Patricia Meagher, director of communications for the society, which is headquartered in Savannah.
The children, mostly second graders, will dress in colonial garb and march alongside bands. The grand marshals are Robert S. Jepson Jr., general chairman of the 2017–2018 Georgia History Festival committee and Kathy Levitt and Swann Seiler, the committee’s Savannah co-chairs.
“It’s not like anything else you’ve ever seen,” Meagher said. “There are no floats. Nothing is motorized. We truly have 3,000 children in colonial costume marching with their classes carrying their banners.”
The banners address the festival’s 2018 theme, “A Legacy of Leadership” and are judged, with winners awarded at City Hall.
Three other events mark the end of the Georgia History Festival.
On Super Museum Sunday, Feb. 11, 96 historical sites and museums will open for free (a list is available at georgiahistory.com/events/2018-super-museum-sunday).
On Feb. 10 and 11, the Colonial Faire and Muster program will present reenactments of colonial and Native American life at Wormsloe State Historic Site in Savannah.
At the Feb. 17 Trustees Gala, Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian and Georgia Power Chairman, President and CEO Paul Bowers will be inducted as present-day trustees. The early Georgia trustees were directed by King George II in 1732 to establish a colony that lived by the motto, “Not for self, but for others.” Modern-day inductions of Georgians who embody that motto began in 2009.
While the present-day festival did not take shape until the society became involved in 1997, residents have celebrated the state’s founding in different ways over the years. Archival photographs show Savannah residents at the turn of the 20th century celebrating something similar to the current Georgia Day. Many were dressed in colonial outfits.
In 1965, the Georgia Heritage Celebration began; it would become the Georgia History Festival.
The celebration was originally a daylong event that included readings from reports of the original Georgia trustees and a dramatization of Oglethorpe meeting Native Americans, according to information submitted to the Library of Congress by the late U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell, who represented Georgia from 1993 until his death in 2000.
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