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CNN Live Today

Georgia High School Students Prepare for First Integrated Prom

Aired May 03, 2002 - 13:41   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: After decades of seeing things in black and white, some students in Georgia are now taking a step toward color blindness. And they are going to do that tonight. They will attend the first integrated prom in school history. Brian Cabell now with their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a pre-prom ritual at Taylor County High School, fashioning the party favors.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you all have any extra curly-Q things, give them to me.

CABELL: But this year, the prom will be different. For the past 31 years, ever since integration, white students have held their own prom, blacks theirs. This year after a class vote, they have decided why not go to the same prom together.

DERICA MCCRARY, SENIOR: We are very close and we are friends and we have been together so many years, and this is just the time to do this.

CABELL: Taylor County in western Georgia is home to only 9,000 residents, no big industries here, not much money. Back in the 19th century, the stage route from New Orleans to Richmond passed through here. But these days, it is off the beaten path.

Time has slowed and old traditions have lingered. Residents eagerly point out that blacks and whites, old and young, have long played and worked together. It is just that the prom was different.

LEE DYKES, JUNIOR: We're not racist around here or anything. This is just -- this was a bad tradition that we have had going on for a while, and it was time to end all the bad things.

CABELL: Some students and adults in private have spoken out against the integrated prom.

STEVEN DUGGER, JUNIOR: I tell them that the times have changed. We're not living in the past any more. Everything should be together, no segregation. Everybody is equal.

STEVE SMITH, PROM SPONSOR: There were a few people who were concerned about it, but I don't think -- it is not because they don't like one race or the other. It is just it's a change.

CABELL: And it is a change brought about not by the school board, which has steered clear of the prom, but by the teenagers, who are more concerned with dances and dresses and decorations...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do we have any better scissors than this?

CABELL: ... than with race and tradition.

(on camera): Taylor County isn't the last high school to have held separate proms. There are still others, mostly in the rural south, where traditions are sometimes slow to die.

Brian Cabell, CNN, Butler, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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