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An Amazing First
Ashburn, Georgia, a rural community of 4,400, 80 miles north of the Florida border, boasts one of the largest peanut-processing plants in the country. But on this Saturday in April, Ashburn is about to get noticed for something different. The city's Turner County High is holding its first school-sponsored integrated prom since America's courts ordered desegregation in educational institutions more than 50 years ago. On Hodge King Drive, in the small brick house he shares with his mother, 17-year-old James Hall is already dressed in his prom finery: white pants, white shoes, white shirt, snappy white tailcoat and a vest, all rented for $117 from Bhavani Hi Style Fashions in Tifton, 20 miles away. His hot-pink garter -- a satin and lace band worn over his sleeve -- matches his date's dress. James, the president of Turner County High's senior class and the moving force behind the prom, is nervous.The whole town, in fact, is percolating with anticipation and anxiety. Camera crews and journalists ("A Media Storm" reads a headline in the local weekly) have converged on Ashburn from as far away as New York City, unnerving residents.
Turner County High, like many schools in small Southern communities, actually stopped holding proms of any kind after desegregation; the last school-sponsored formal dance in Ashburn took place in 1969. Instead, black students and white students raised money from car washes and bake sales to underwrite separate parent-supported proms held each spring in hotels or other facilities away from school grounds. De facto segregation in the opinion of some; private parties in the view of others.
The Class of 2007 decided it was time to start a new tradition.
On the day before the prom, as James Hall struggled to hang a large paper moon on the gym stage, he looked back with a sense of satisfaction. "This has been my dream since freshman year," he said. "I think other people wanted to do this before, but no one was ready to get behind it and push forward." James was. Early in the school year, he and his fellow class officers (two whites and another black) approached the school principal, Chad Stone, and announced they wanted to hold a prom in the gym for everyone in the junior and senior classes.
Stone, a high-energy former coach, was all for it. "I've watched these kids grow up together and become great friends across the board," he says. He agreed to cover the costs of the disc jockey and the decorations. The committee chose a tropical island theme with palm trees and colored lights, and painted a huge banner that said "Breakaway." Says Stone, "We're breaking ground here, breaking away from old tradition and establishing a new one. School-sponsored is the point. We're trying not to make this a black-white thing." But, inevitably, it is.
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