November 21, 2009
UTNE READER

Same Old Song and Dance

May 14, 2003
Gary Younge The Guardian 
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Last year, students at Taylor County High School in Butler, Georgia, held the first integrated prom in 31 years. Though its theme, ?Make it Last Forever,? seemed to hold some promise, the integrated dance didn?t even make it to 2003. The school this spring returned to the unconstitutional practice of holding segregated proms, a decision parents made in part because ?some children who had been educated together since kindergarten [were] in their final rite of passage as they leave school,? reports Gary Younge of The Guardian. The proms were organized by parents and students, as school officials no longer sponsor the dances, ?partly to avoid [interracial] dating.? This is not an isolated event in the south?or even the most extreme, Younge notes. Until a few years ago, Hernando High School in Mississippi ?had everything in racial duplicate?from black and a white principals to black and white yearbooks.
?Erin Ferdinand

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Go there>> Dancing to an old southern segregationist tune

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