Georgia NAACP joins call for integrated prom
VIDEO - Leaders of the Georgia NAACP stood before the Wilcox County School Board at its work session and said it is time for the adults to follow the lead of the students...
WXIA – Leaders of the Georgia NAACP stood before the Wilcox County School Board at its work session and said it is time for the adults to follow the lead of the students.
“These children want to go to prom together. I cannot understand that in the year 2013 there are segregated proms in Wilcox County,” said Edward DuBose, President of the Georgia NAACP.
Currently, neither the board nor Wilcox County High School sponsors a prom. For decades, parents and students have held separate parties for white students and black students and called them “proms.”
Four seniors this year decided to change that.
Keela Bloodworth and her friends said they do everything together and prom should be one of the things they celebrate together.
“We’re basically siblings,” said Bloodworth. “We’ve spent more time together than anyone else.”
“They always had the quote-unquote ‘white prom’ and the ‘black prom’,” Bloodworth explains.
They are organizing the first-ever integrated prom.
That has meant booking DJs, making fliers, and hammering out all the details. But while they’ve faced some backlash from their community, they’ve gotten an onslaught of support worldwide.
So far, they say half of the white students in their grade have already signed on to go to their prom instead of the white only prom.
It will be held on April 27 at the Crisp County Community Clubhouse in Cordele.
Things have been changing slowly at Wilcox County High School, but critics say it’s not enough.
There is now one integrated homecoming court, but even after Quanesha Wallace was elected Homecoming Queen, she wasn’t allowed to the “white” homecoming party because she’s black.
“Hearing from other students that I couldn’t, they didn’t want me to go, it kind of saddened my heart a little,” Wallace said.
School board members signed a resolution supporting the students who are putting together the integrated prom, but the NAACP urged members to do more.
“We want them to go on the record as supporting one and only prom in 2014 that is for all students regardless of their color. Staying silent on something like this is a problem. The children have spoken about what they want, it is time for the adults to follow through,” DuBose said.
