Kids host their first racially integrated prom
Editor's note: CNN'S Gary Tuchman reports on a Georgia county that is having its first ever integrated prom.
As Quanesha Wallace remembers, it was around this time last year when the idea first came up at Wilcox County High School. It was nothing big, just chatter about prom, school, what comes next, what they'd change.
If things were different, someone said, we'd all go to the same prom.
For as long as anyone could remember, students in their South Georgia community went to separate proms, and homecoming dances, too. White students from Wilcox County attend one. Black students, another. They’re private events organized by parents and students, not the school district. Schools have long been desegregated, but in Wilcox County, the dances never changed.
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Post by: Gary Tuchman, Jamie Gumbrecht Filed under: Race in America |
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This school is my Alma Mater, I graduated from this high school. Breaks my heart!!! What can I say?!!!!! In this day and age, really?! I had no idea this was still going on!! Shame on WCHS school district, superintenant, WCHS principal and Rochelle City council!! Shme on you for allowing this to go on all these decades! I am so ashamed and embarrased to know you!!!
It's sad that this had to be written in America 2013. This should of been news in 1963.
Students of the WCHS prom committee of 2011 requested school authorization to have a school sponsored prom, but were denied the privilege. State representatives visited the school and prom representatives presented them with the idea of a school sponsored prom. In the end, the students sponsored a diverse prom where all were welcome to attend.
As a parent of a student who graduated from WCHS in the class of 2011, I specifically recall the diverse members of that prom committee planning, organizing and soliciting help from State representatives (who visited the school), the WCHS principal and others to approve a prom for all. Although the school did not sponsor any proms, that committee sponsored an integrated prom where all who wanted to attend could do so. Also, the class of 2011 had an African American king and a white queen for homecoming with a diverse court.
Really?! This is their first racially integrated prom? Dear Lord! What's up with this school / town? I thought I lived in a backward town. It's still 1960 over there. I think I might make a visit just to feel what its like to go back in time. I wonder if they still have a Woolworths!!
Thanks CNN for airing this. Unfortunately I feel like I've living in a cave. I thought that this had stopped many years. Think about it. Why Can't We All Just Get Along.