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CNN SATURDAY MORNING NEWS
Taylor County High School Ends Prom Segregation
Aired May 4, 2002 - 07:58 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Black and white students, attending a prom together. Doesn't sound like a news flash, does it? But for students in one rural Georgia town it is a first. Our Brian Cabell explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thirty-one years of tradition at Taylor County High School ended last night. White students and black students who had previous held separate proms dressed up, danced, and celebrated together.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE STUDENT: I don't know for how many years (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they liked it separate -- black having they own prom, white having they own prom-- and our two presidents, they asked us to come together, and just have our prom together, so we did it.
CABELL: The students, by an overwhelming vote, had decided it didn't make sense any more to attend a segregated prom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE STUDENT: We are very close, and we're friends, and we've 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's 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's just that the prom was different.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE STUDENT: We're not racist around here or anything, this is just -- this was a bad tradition that we've had going on for a while and it -- it was time to end all bad things.
CABELL: Some students and adults in private have spoken out against the integrated prom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm telling' them that the times are changing. We're not living in the past any more. These things should be together, no segregation, everybody equal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are a few people who are concerned about it. But I don't think -- it's not because they don't like one race or the other, it's just that it's a change.
CABELL: And it's 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 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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