Eek!

I had to double check the date on this article because it seemed like something from the archives, but, alas, it is a current story about a high school in Charleston, Mississippi, that held its first ever interracial prom THIS YEAR!! 38 years after integration!! The segregated white and black proms have been organized privately since integration because the school does not host an official prom on school grounds. So the separate communities do their own thing. However, Mississippi's own Morgan Freeman has been offering for over 10 years to fund a prom at the school for everyone, and the school has declined until this year.

Holy moly. It is shocking, and also not shocking. This is definitely not representative of the entire state of Mississippi, but it makes my state look absolutely hideous. Part of me is so proud of these kids for realizing that they can enjoy something like prom while brushing up against kids of another race, but then a bigger part of me is just aghast that they are just now having this realization, that their community is structured in such a way that it never really occurred to them that there was something weird about a white prom that black kids didn't go to and a black prom that white kids didn't go to.

Oh, and this quote: "Some white parents wouldn't let their kids go, and some insisted on holding a private prom for their kids."

Read it and weep, here:

Mississippi School Holds First Interracial Prom