This Saturday, May 14th, Mount Holyoke will celebrate a very special tradition that links graduating seniors in the Class of 2016 to alums returning for reunions. (Photo shown here is from the 1986 Laurel Parade.)
The Laurel Parade has a long history at Mount Holyoke... In 1900 graduating seniors paid homage to the College by placing wreaths of laurel and forget-me-nots in front of College founder Mary Lyon's grave and sang "Holyoke, Tried and True." Two years later, laurel chains replaced the wreaths and a Mount Holyoke College tradition was born.
In 1932 the laurel chain ceremony was integrated into the annual alumnae parade and since then has remained the parade's highlight. This moving ritual, which takes place during commencement weekend, marks the transition from MHC student to MHC alum. During the parade, seniors--linked by two 275-yard laurel chains--process through the ranks of returning alumnae to Mary Lyon's grave. After weaving the chain around the grave site's fence, they sing "Bread and Roses," a poem-turned-song that was taken up by strikers demanding reasonable hours and pay at a textile mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912. The seniors and all the alumnae parade participants dress in white, a tradition that began as a show of solidarity with the suffragettes who wore white when campaigning for women's right to vote.
The chains are made out of mountain laurel, representing the bay laurel that symbolized honor, achievement, and glory in ancient times. Early on the laurel was hand picked by first-year students from the local hillsides. During periods when mountain laurel became scarce, daisies or ribbon were substituted.
Student protest also has a history in the Laurel Parade. For two years in the early 1970s student opted to carry antiwar signs instead of the laurel chains. In 1986, some students carried signs protesting the United States’ support of the Contras in Nicaragua as well as the laurel chain (see picture above).
