April 7, 2013

  • Segregated Proms Still Exist? I am Stunned By That!!!

    Read the entire article that goes with the above video here:  LINK

    These students had to organize this racially integrated prom on their own.  After racial integration of the schools was required by law, proms were halted altogether because when the school tried having racially integrated proms, few to no people went because white parents did not want their kids socializing with black kids.  By law, however, the schools could hardly discriminate by holding one prom for black students and another for white students.  Nor would that be economically feasible. 

    So proms were replaced by private parties, which were either for white students only, or for black students only.  They justified it in their minds by calling it tradition.

Comments (19)

  • Wow. That’s insane! 

  • I was reading about that a couple weeks ago. I was shocked too

  • I didn’t know any place in America still did this! I am amazed. It’s about time! 

  • Unfortunately, the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. 

  • I saw the headline earlier, but didn’t read the article until now. It sounds appalling at first, but it isn’t the school that’s doing it–that’s what I thought it was going to say, but it would be illegal for the school to segregate like that. I”m glad some of the kids got together on it. Maybe, after everyone sees what a good thing it is, the practice will continue.

  • @whyzat - These students had to organize this integrated prom on their own.  After
    integration of the schools, proms were halted altogether because when
    the school tried having integrated proms, few to no people went because
    white parents did not want their kids socializing with black kids.  So
    proms were replaced by private parties, which were either all white or
    all black.

  • I grew up in California and just can’t imagine such a world.

  • This must be happening somewhere in the deep south. Very sad. Just checked the article. Georgia. Yep.

    If ever there is a new civil rights movement with a leader such as Martin Luther King Jr., I would happily be a supporter of such a movement.

  • i know that that kind of thing happens alot. my prom was not segregated but i have heard of some that are. alot of people in the south and in other places are letting go of not wanting white and black kids to not interact but yea it does still happen

  • Um…highly doubt it’s without political spin.  

  • Kids these days will change the way people look at each other.. It’s a very good thing.

  • This is worrying.. Hopeful progresses come
    In friendship
    Michel

  • I must say that a black woman is among my best friends in this world.  We miss each other so much when I must go back to my husband’s favored West coast home, and I would lay down my life for her.  It is from this friend that I learn a great deal about the black community, and from city to city as I travel America, I see segregation, and here in Cincinnati, we live in one of the few integrated areas here, so I take some pride in this decision.//Some day we may need to find that we cannot force integration, for from Bunis, I have learned something else, that there is proud community among black families who may just not want their family to live among a bunch of white people.  Bunis and I both were born in Alabama, so we have seen Civil Rights from Selma to Cincinnati, and the white people fail to understand that we come out of a European heritage, and our ways are not always seen as wonderful by people who are more connected with Africa’s unique heritage.//  Now Hispanics are a third very rich culture, so again we may see people clinging to what is familiar and comfortable and mistake it for prejudice.  If one goes to the Mission area of San Francisco, Spanish is spoken. so then who becomes the outsider? 

    Atlanta, Georgia beats all I have ever seen, just like Oakland, California.  The cities have a black core, and ring after ring of mixed, but mainly white suburbs,  and should we say this is calculated, or after 60 years, we have segregation once more.  Civil Rights laws are on the books and need to be enforced to the fullest extent of the law, and Dr. King saw the nation  that would be color blind.  We are not there, but the thread and responsibility falls in the hands of all of brother and sister hood to reach over the divide.  I keep seeing segregation, and immediately, someone screams; “It is about the poverty.”  Sometimes it is just that people feel happier with cultural norms which were created long before we were born. Harmony is a beautiful word, for living in harmony allows for cultural differences.  We Europeans once found it acceptable to blow our nose on a table cloth, most disgusting indeed.

      Parents are the only way a black and white prom could happen, so perhaps the children, educated together, may need to drag parents to an, “After the Prom Breakfast,” and have the table spread as such the two camps share the table for the first time. Pray for us Dr. King, for we’re still climbing — But together, we have come farther along..  We may need to let nature and friendship take over from here, for the more we force, the further back we get pushed.  I am a white girl who grew up in what outsiders considered to be the way southern black people lived, and Bunis knows my melodrama, “You got to be on TV, and I didn’t.”  We all looked pretty much the same with our cotton sacks.

    God Bless, Barbara

  • When I was on mission in Texas with the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. I attended an all black* National Baptist Church in the area, because it was the closest church. I was with a group of Hispanic teens, and we had given them money to go to the mall and buy Christmas gifts for their parents. As we drove by the church, I pointed it out to them and said that is where I go to church. The teens just kind of looked at me, and one of them said “Do they talk to you?” I looked at the teen and with a deadpan face said “No we sit and stare at each other all Sunday” A couple of the other teens laughed and I told them that yes, I got along with the other church attendees just fine.

    I had been working with the pastor of the church, to let his kids come to the mission center on one of the days we had activities for kids, he was willing, but they went to a private school, and the hours did not seem to match up. Finally his kids were on break, and he pulled up to the center with them, and I signed them in and held my breath. Would I hear of any racism or comments since the pastor’s kids were black, and the others were Hispanic, and some were the younger siblings, of the youth from the previous story. The afternoon went by, and everyone had fun playing football (soccer) and roller skating, and listening to the story. I breathed a sigh of relief and went home at the end of the day.

    So what is the difference between the accepting grade school kids, who welcomed in these two kids and let them play games with them, and the older youth/siblings who were surprised that I would go to a black church and that the church members would accept me?

    My only thought, is that racism must be taught. The younger kids had not been exposed to it for as long as the youth.

    *I used the word black throughout this comment, because that is how the people at the church identified themselves. If they had used the term African American, I would have used that term.

  • @CuddlyKat - @PinkHoneysuckle - @ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake - I have often, as a white, English-speaking American, been an extreme minority at an event organized by and for members of a specific nationality or ethnic group.  I know you are both Christian, so I confess the specific example I’m going to share is much less pure of heart than those you both shared, but here I go, anyway.

    This happened a number of years back.  I went for a brief getaway with three friends to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  On our last night, which was Sunday, we decided to find what is politely called a “gentlemen’s club”.  In other words, a strip joint.  The thing is, we had not been told that Myrtle Beach was in the Bible Belt.  Every place like that we passed was closed, until this one on the edge of the city.  There was a young black woman, apparently a dancer, standing outside.  Then we realized everybody we saw was black.  The driver asked me if it was okay if we didn’t go there.  I said since the vote appeared to be three to one, it was fine.  We could go to another bar.   I also made it known that I had no problem with the place and, if it was me alone, I would have walked right in  like I owned the place, and probably been just fine.

  • Just the adult and some teaching the children to live in the past. Most of the children can see pass the lack of knowledge on some of the adult part. However, change does take place slow and moving forward.

  • I’m glad the students are trying to do something about it

  • @lonelywanderer2 -I believe this again speaks to the fact that there are cultural advice and norms which run both ways. Civil Rights did not stop, “The Right of Assembly,” — It nourished it, and as a Souuthern, probably Christian black man,  this gentleman was endeavoring to help a traveler.  Pregnant with my twins so long ago, I was half way home from the Drs when I had a choice, to wet my pants or to go in to what was know around town as a hard core richer black person’s night club.  A woman of high fashion opened the door, I was so embarrassed that I cried as I told her that I was miserable, and could I please use the restroom.  She never said a word, opened the door, and I could see that she and a gentleman having a cocktail at the bar dressed in high fashion looked at me, and again, he said not one word — But I was shown to a beautiful bathroom, no graffiti on the walls, though I knew drug raids were common at this place.  All I could say was, “Thank You,” and I left. Cultural differences prevail. They have since the inception of humanity..  South Carolina is still rogue, probably the nearest to, “A state’s right place you’ll ever go to in the South.” One crosses the border and road signs are allowed limitlessly, something verboten to me, but if you move in to the state; “Welcome,” Take it or leave it but  glaring road signs are an individual choice. Past voices are thick in the air from ages past where there is a tendency to thumb their nose at Federal law.  The deeper in to the old south one goes, as is explained in, “Pinkhoneysuckle,”  class differences based on income and family name leave poor blacks and poor whites on the same ship.  The, “Mark of Cain,” is often still interpreted as the curse of dark skinned people, and that burden will not be lifted — Though Biblical poor were loved in the time of Jesus, so being judged on class distinctions is as damnable as racism.  I think about soup kitchens where a lot of wealthier and middle income people feed the poor, but how many could bear to offer the same poor a place at the family’s table?   

    You speak as eloquently as any one, and please continue to question of where Civil Rights are not enforced, but one quarter a century ago this desperate Mom found relief in a Black night club where whites were not meant to venture, and every city in this nation has the very same monuments to where racial divides still exist, and the welcome sign is not hung out for all.  The society Dr. King prayed for is still the utopia, but were he alive today, would he not have admitted that we still have cultural caverns to cross.  Understanding that we have much to learn about each other is a positive and the denial that we are culturally unique makes our abiding in this country together all the more special.  We’re not perfect, so I know there are place unfamiliar, so we ask for guidance in knowing which lines we are ready to crosss.

    Bless you this day and always.  Barbara, Author of, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” the book — Amazon, Kindle, and Create Space.  Many thanks.  

    I respect your need to break the mold of injustice, but we must not force ourselves in to what we do not own culturally or racially.

    Blessings For Your Honesty, Barbara

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