Georgia High School Has First Integrated Prom
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iStockphoto(WILCOX COUNTY, Ga.) — A high school in Georgia had its first integrated prom on Saturday night.
For decades, there were two proms at Wilcox County High School; a white prom and a black prom. These segregated proms were organized and thrown by parents, and the school itself avoided endorsing any prom festivities.
The integrated prom was not organized by the school either, by a group of students, black and white, who decided that a prom they could all attend was long overdue.
Mareshia Rucker was one of the students who created integrated prom Facebook event to raise awareness and support for the prom.
“We were doing that so that we could get the word out and so that some people would begin to donate and help us out in what we were doing,” Rucker explained.
The community responded, and many supplies and funds needed to throw the prom were donations.
“It’s just time for a change and we have it this evening, which is good,” Adelle Lawson, told ABC’s Good Morning America the day before the prom. That night, Lawson’s grandchild celebrated prom with white students for the first time.
Even though the integrated prom was by all accounts a success, there was still a segregated prom, thrown by white parents.
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