Prom; the last event of a high school senior before graduation and beginning of a new journey, an event where parents spend money, time, lots of love, advice and reminisce on their own high school prom. Prom is event to share some of the last memories with your high school friends. Its not about age, race, gender or culture, its about memories that will last a life time. In Wilcox County, Georgia, students at Wilcox County High School hosted their first integrated prom a couple of weeks ago. For more than 40 years Wilcox County High School hasn't sponsored a prom for its 400 students but proms were a private, racially segregated event. Parents and their children organize their own private, off-site parties, known casually as “white” prom and “black” prom, a remnant of racial segregation that still lives on. Talking about race in a small town is a quick way to risk everything. After 40 years of local traditions students challenged the customs in the month of April by organizing their own integrated prom, a formal dance open to Wilcox County's White, Black, Latino and Asian high school students. More than 40 years after these South Georgia schools desegregated, students are still separated on what they see as the brightest nights of their lives. Some from all the county's small towns of Abbeville, Pineview, Pitts, Rochelle say nobody ever questioned the segregation until this year. But kept asking, and high school graduates will say they wondered about it, questioned it or even asked to make a change. Until this year, the plans never fell through. When the story erupted on television and social media, Wilcox County became a symbol of race relations stuck in the past. People around the world heard about the sneers from some classmates, the silence from some adults, the school board that says it supports them but didn't sponsor its own prom. Thousands lashed outat the old tradition or offered up kind words, cash, dresses, and a DJ. Stunned, they wanted to know, could this be true? In 2013? Organizers, both black and white, stated they lost friends in the process, a grim experience in the last weeks of the school year. By this time next year, prom in Wilcox County could be entirely different. The high school's leadership will consider hosting a prom in 2014, Superintendent Steve Smith stated “It might not eliminate private, segregated proms, but if it happens, it could promise a dance open to everybody”. Wilcox County and Wilcox High School are now left with picking up the pieces and trying to make a new slate and make sense of what has happened in the rural area.
