Georgia Teens Raise Money to Hold High School's First Integrated Prom Ever: 'Yeah It's Kind of Embarrassing'
Ironically, it was just after the high school in Wilcox County, Georgia, became integrated thirty years ago that the school held its first segregated proms.
"It's embarrassing to know that I'm from the county that still does this," Wilcox County High School student Keela Bloodworth told 41NBC.
Bloodworth, a white student, and three of her friends — two of them black — have launched an effort to hold the school's first ever integrated prom, but the task is proving more difficult than one might expect in 2013.
"I actually put up posters for the integrated prom and we've had people ripping them down at the school," Bloodworth told CBS Atlanta.
Both the separate black and white proms and the separate black and white homecoming dances are privately funded by parents and students, so Bloodworth and her friends have been forced to try and raise the money themselves.
While the school has no official stance on the matter, it did decide that there should be only one homecoming king and queen this year.
But it was an empty gesture: The white king and black queen were not allowed to take joint photographs for the yearbook, and neither is allowed to attend the other's prom.
"I think it's more of the personal opinions of those involved," City Councilman Wayne McGuinty told Fox24. "I don't think there is an effort made to keep black kids out of the white prom and to keep white kids out of the black prom."
Actually, there is.
When a biracial student attempted to enter the white prom just last year, police were called to turn them away.
McGuinty, meanwhile, fondly reflected on his high school days, when the school had three proms instead of two.
"They couldn't agree if they wanted a live band or a DJ, so there were two white proms that year," he said.