On April 21, 2007, students at Turner County High School, in the small southern Georgia town of Ashburn, did what no former students had been able to do – the Kid ‘N Play with a student of the opposite race at the first integrated prom in the schools history. A good thing too, because the white students at the White’s only prom were screwing it up famously.
Prior to this year, Turner County High School decided to keep up with the thoughts and intentions of pre- (hell who are we kidding, post- too) antebellum Southern teachings of separate but “kinda” equal by having two separate proms: one for the white students and one for the Black students.
“It’s always been a tradition since my daddy was in school to have the segregated ones, and this year we’re finally getting to try something new,” said Lacey Adkinson, a freshman at TCHS. An anonymous student mentioned, though off the record, that they also decided that if it would save on the water bill, they’d try something new by letting the “coloreds” drink at the same water fountains, but walked away saying something about cooties.
Lacey’s older sister, Mindy, added, while wearing a shirt that said ‘Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are my Homeboys:’ “There was not anybody that I can remember that was black,” she said. “The white people have theirs, and the black people have theirs. It’s nothing racial at all.”
She added, “I mean, my best friend’s nanny is Black so it isn’t like we DON’T like them!”
Some of the students had been waiting for the opportunity to have an integrated prom for some time. One student, Senior Class President James Hall, echoed the same luminary dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King: “It’s been a dream of all of ours.”
Sweet dreams, James. Sweet dreams.
However, not everybody in Ashburn was ready to make that leap into the 21st century. Ohhhhh no. Despite having the first integrated prom in the school’s history, the white students still had a White’s only prom. One student, 18-year-old hopefully a senior Nichole Royal said that the Black students could have come but they didn’t.
“I guess they feel like they’re not welcome,” she said.
Um. Duh.
Nichols said while her parents were in support of the integrated prom, some of her friends weren’t allowed to go.
“If they’re not coming tonight it’s because either they had to work and they couldn’t get out of it or because their parents are still having an issue because they grew up in south Georgia,” she said.
All in all, the students and parents were more than happy to leave 1950 in the past and see what this whole “integrated dancing” thing was all about. Said one anonymous parent of a white student exhibiting acceptance, “I mean, we have to let ‘em learn together we might as well let ‘em dance together. Besides, them darkies got rhythm! You ever see that one boy, Michael Jackson? Yeee haw can he do a mean jig!”
Who knows what tomorrow will bring in this small south Georgia town. Maybe cell phones. Maybe light poles. That is unimportant as for the first time in TCHS’s history, the white students will actually have the proper guidance when DJ Unk’s “Walk It Out” comes on. And that is a victory for us all.
Original article can be found here. All quotes and italicized text come directly from the aforementioned article.
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