Students integrate prom

ASHBURN, Ga. (AP) — Breaking from tradition, high school students in this small town are getting together for this year’s prom.

Prom night at Turner County High has long been an evening of de facto segregation: White students organized their own unofficial prom, while black students did the same.

This year’s group of seniors didn’t want that legacy. When the four senior class officers — two whites and two blacks — met with Principal Chad Stone at the start of the school year, they had more on their minds than changes to the school’s dress code.

They wanted a school-sponsored prom. They wanted everyone invited.

On April 21, they will have their wish. The town’s auditorium will be transformed into a tropical scene, and for the first time, every junior and senior, regardless of race, will be invited to an official prom.

The prom’s theme: Breakaway.

“Everybody says that’s just how it’s always been. It’s just the way of this very small town,” said James Hall, a 17-year-old black student who is the senior class president. “But it’s time for a change.”

Excited announcements of the dance are plastered all over the school, where about 55 percent of students are black and most of the rest are white.

A makeshift countdown to the prom is displayed as a cardboard cutout on a main hallway. Student council members canvass the hallways, asking students to buy a $25 ticket and be a part of history. In the cafeteria, images of palm trees and waterfalls brighten up the sterile walls. “The First Ever,” a poster exclaims. “Got your haircut?”

Students say the self-segregation that splits social circles in school mirrors the attitude of this town of 4,000 people, so getting every student to break from the past could be a difficult task.

With prom night less than two weeks away, only half of the 160 upper-class students have bought tickets. According to talk around the school, some white students might throw a competing party at a nearby lake.

Turner County High School abandoned its practice of naming separate white and black homecoming queens. Instead, a mixed-race student was named the first solo homecoming queen.