Integration reaches the South

In 1997, Academy Award–winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated.

Bravo Mr. Freeman.

His offer was ignored.

Shame on you Charleston.

In 2008, Freeman offered again. This time the school board accepted, and history was made. Charleston High School had its first-ever integrated prom—in 2008!

Prom Night In Mississippi showing now on HBO, captures a big moment in a small town, where hope finally blossoms in black, white, and a whole lot of taffeta.

Until then, blacks and whites had had separate proms even though their classrooms have been integrated for decades.

Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman follows students, teachers, and parents in the lead-up to the big day. Freeman addresses the student body. Girls shop for dresses and get their hair done. Boys rent tuxedoes and buy corsages. These seemingly inconsequential rites of passage suddenly become profound as the weight of history falls on teenage shoulders. We quickly learn that change does not come easily in this sleepy Delta town. Freeman’s generosity fans the flames of racism—and racism in Charleston has a distinctly generational tinge.

Resistance to integrating the prom came primarily from parents, while the students, for the most part sound a hopeful note, articulate their own feelings in the face prejudice. "Billy Joe," an enlightened white senior, appears on camera in shadow, fearing his racist parents will disown him if they know his true feelings.

The documentary is an eye-opening reminder that racism is alive and well in America, 54 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered an end to segregated public schools. Makes me question how Federal funds continued to pour into the Charleston school system at all for all these years.

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