There Once Was a Racist Prom in Mississippi

A school had one prom for black students and another for white students until a Hollywood star intervened.

A Canadian documentary explores the roots of racial prejudice in a southern town of 2,000 inhabitants in the United States, birthplace of the famous film actor Morgan Freeman.

Charleston High School is the only public high school in this small Mississippi town. Its halls, like the rest of the town, show a primarily black population, which shares practically all settings with the white population.

All except the prom. When the Tigers (the school football team) have a game, the white and black players pray together before going out to the field.

In the stands white and black cheerleaders sing the same song in unison. Proud men and women wear the school colors, blue and yellow.

But at the end of each year in Charleston, people celebrate two proms: One for the white students and one for the black students. No one can really explain why, but it has always been like this.

Or at least, it was until the American actor Morgan Freeman decided to visit the town where he lived and studied. Confronted with the reality of the two parties, he offered to pay for the prom if it were integrated.

The odyssey of bringing a new concept to a town of 2,000 inhabitants, one of the poorest counties in the country where members of the Ku Klux Klan hanged dozens of blacks in the early 20th century, has been told by Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman, who joined Freeman as he made the offer and followed the students, who welcomed the initiative, and the parents, who resisted.

The result is Prom Night in Mississippi, a documentary that currently airs on the cable channel HBO in Latin America.

Resistance to Change

From his home in Toronto, Canada, Saltzman told TIME, “When the school was built, about half the white students went to a private academy to be further educated separately. That academy still exists. Whites who remained in the integrated school did not want their children to go to a party integrated with blacks and they created a white prom.”*

He added that “In response to that, the blacks also created their own prom. However, the black prom was never segregated, you could go if you were white, but almost no one did. We know of one or two students that did because everyone else feared rejection by their friends.”*

Resistance to change is an endemic factor in Charleston. Despite a ruling by the Supreme Court ordering the integration of all public schools in the country in 1954, the local high school categorically refused to admit black students until 1970 — 16 years later.

Freeman had made the offer once 11 years ago; it was rejected. So this time he blasted the school district to advocate for the students’ right to decide. “Tradition is one thing,” he told the school board president. “Idiocy is another.”

The strength of the documentary is in the way in which racism is portrayed through the eyes of the students, for whom it is an alien phenomenon inherited from their parents and that many imitate, but few understand.

“My parents are racist, but I love them and accept the fact that they are racist,” a white student who agreed with the idea, but was afraid to express it said, his face distorted to protect his identity. “They are the opposite of me and maybe that’s why I don’t understand how they think.”*

For most, it was simply a matter of logic. Chasidy Buckley, a student of the class that organized the integrated prom, said, “We go to school together and we get along well, I never understood what the concerns were. This is the 21st century, why should we have the same attitude that existed 50 years ago?”*

His attitude validated Freeman’s position: “If it’s left up to the students, it’s gonna be fine.”

Profound Impact

The prom was successful, but the road to the true integration of historically divided societies is often long and difficult. “Certainly the fact that there is an integrated prom has changed people. How much, I don’t know,”* Saltzman said.

The experiment was repeated with success last year and it feeds the hopes of those who believe that change is possible. This year, a new generation of young people is graduating in Charleston and the school is scheduled to undergo a new integrated prom.

But the roots of racism are not easily removed. Saltzman says that “the white prom still exists, because some 20 families would not let their children go to the integrated party. One of the most ironic things is that the reason white parents give for not wanting their children to go is the fear of sex, violence and drugs. But if you see the documentary, you’ll notice that the integrated prom went great, but there was a fight in the white prom. That’s the irony of human behavior.”*

*Editor’s Note: These quotes, while translated accurately, could not be verified.