In a shocking leap into the 20th century, Turner County High School in Ashburn, Georgia just held its first integrated prom. Previously, despite the school itself being integrated, white students raised funds to hold their own private party prompting black students to do the same. This was the first year that senior class officers moved to hold one official prom and invite all students. The decision comes on the heel of the school abandoning the crowning of separate black and white homecoming queens last fall.

No, this isn’t some “this day in 1950s history” post, this just happened over the past weekend. I know in my neck of the woods, Chicago certainly still deals with the issues of race and segregation, but my god I must live in a bubble because I am shocked that this kind of blatant racism still exists in this day and age. Of course I realize there are plenty of individual racist pricks out there, I’m not completely naive, but to think an entire county would condone this is almost incomprehensible to me. The county’s school superintendent was quoted by the AP as saying, “I couldn’t be more proud of these young people. The changes needed to come from the student body.” Because it seems it sure won’t be driven by their parents or the school administration.

While this is certainly forward progress for this backwater town, it apparently is just a baby step. Only two-thirds of the upper class attended the prom, the majority being the black students. A number of white students still threw their own private party a week earlier.

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