Mississippi school holds first interracial prom

I can't believe in this day and age there were separate proms for blacks and whites.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91371629

The Bryant Park Project, June 11, 2008 · Mississippi integrated its public schools in 1970, but segregation still haunts parts of the culture. One example of this could be found at Charleston High School. The Delta town had maintained a system of separate proms — organized privately — for black and white students.

As far back as 1997, actor Morgan Freeman, a Charleston local, offered to pay for the dance if everyone could go. This year, officials finally accepted the offer. A Canadian film crew led by Paul Saltzman documented the event for the upcoming Prom Night in Mississippi.

A photographer working with the crew says people in Charleston didn't question the segregated dances. But as the big night approached, the importance of the change became clear. Catherine Farquharson followed several kids as they washed their cars and had their hair done.

She describes one encounter in an African-American beauty parlor, in which an elderly woman who'd been part of the civil rights movement stopped in to see what the hubbub was about. The woman ended up giving an impromptu testimony about the history these young people were about to make. "It was almost like it didn't occur to a lot of the kids, until the day of the prom, how important what was going on really was," Farquharson reports.

Student Chasidy Buckley says that Charleston's first interracial prom made for a happy and comfortable night. Some white parents wouldn't let their kids go, and some insisted on holding a private prom for their kids. But mostly, Buckley says, students enjoyed themselves — even if they'd expected a boring formal.

"It was just magnificent," Buckley says. "That night, when we stepped in that door, everybody just had a good time. We proved ourselves wrong. We proved the community wrong, because they didn't think that it was going to happen."

Buckley says the school has decided to host a prom next year, giving black and white kids another chance to dress up and step out. "It's going to continue to go on in our school, and if it continues to go on in our school, then our community will continue to improve," she says. "It'll impact them, too, because once they see that blacks and whites can come together in school and have fun together, then they'll see that the community can change, too."

 

Listen, you can mention NYPD, institutional racism and what have you in other parts of the country, but the South is still the most fucking backward part of this freaking country. They won't change.

 

that's some real screwed up shit..

i'll take these random police beatdowns over that Jim Jones junk anyday

late edit - I'm stuck on stupid...I meant to write "Jim Crowe."

The good o' days when just lookin at a white girl, would get your head smashed in.

 

I like my redneck racists how I like big-chested women...."Out and in the open."

The South is backwards but there are no illusions of racial "harmony."

You can't have segregated proms in Detroit, Baltimore, New York, Boston etc. because the black kids and the white kids don't even go to the same schools...or live in the same neighborhoods.

Same animal, different pattern of stripes.

8) :roll: :idea:

 

?

have you ever lived in those cities before?

do you know enough, from personal experience living there or credible research, about their school systems and class makeups....

enough to say that they don't go to the same schools...

I know from personal experience that white, black, asian, latino kids, do go to the same schools, especially when it comes to magnet schools with strict enrollment requirements. Again, this is from personal experience. I also know that I always had the freedom to dance and mingle, with girls of any races in school. Sure, some people weren't for it, but I never had to worry about official boundaries being crossed, as with that ass backwards stuff that still takes place in other areas of the country.

 

It is sad but this is Mississippi,the state that refused to change the state flag with the Confederate flag on it,the people are just too prejudiced that they won't except Morgan Freeman's offer for a integrated dance more than ten years ago. It is a hard line conservative enclave.

 

I'm not denying that things are ass-backwards in Mississippi.

All I'm saying is that the differences in racism between the regions of the country aren't differences of degree but differences in form.

Southerners practice a more "hard" form of racism while Northerners practice a "soft" form.

A big-mouthed NYPD cop that has a propensity to stop young black men more often when they are driving a nice car....isn't much different from a big-mouthed Rome, Georgia cop that doesn't pull over young black men for driving nice cars....but uses the "N" word like it's going out of style or tells his daughter that he'll shoot her dead if she brings home a black guy.

Just because racism isn't enforced doesn't mean it doesn't exist.


As for the classrooms....

Detroit public schools grades K-12:

Black = 89.23%
Non-Hispanic White = 2.54%

http://www.detroit.k12.mi.us/data/dpsfacts/



Baltimore public schools grades K-12

Black = 89%
Non-Hispanic White = 8%

Percentage of blacks in Baltimore county = 24.4&
Percentage of whites in Baltimore county= 68.7%


http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/md/district_profile/3



I'll research the other two later...

 

Chosenone stop using my city as a example (bmore) just playing.
You are kinda right in baltimore county college its a vibe where I wouldnt call you the nword but stay the hell away from me.


I'm glad those kids are going to prom together.

 

Thats interesting. So are the whites going to private schools?The school vouchers would most likely change that crap.