Black only prom and White only prom…Morgan Freeman says ‘enough’
Actor combats racial segregation as local high-school still promotes ignorance.
For 11 years, an offer has been on the table from Morgan Freeman to finance a prom at his local high school in Mississippi that would end a tradition of holding two separate proms – one for black students, the other for whites.
The Oscar-winning actor heard about the segregated proms in 1997 and offered the High School money to fund a dance for all races to attend. Film cameras were rolling when the school board finally took him up on the offer in 2008.
“Prom Night in Mississippi,” which premiered last weekend as part of the world documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival, chronicled the growing pains the High School went through as the community prepared for its first racially integrated senior prom.
The move came 54 years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education case that struck down school segregation and more than 30 years after black students began attending the school, which previously had been all-white.
The prom cost Freeman $17,000, which he said was “money very well spent” and he hopes this event will lead to integrated proms from now on. “The kids are not going to want to go backwards,” Freeman said. “They’ve got their toe in the water, and the water’s warm.”
Related posts:
Morgan Freeman incest allegations
Morgan Freeman wants kids with his granddaughter
Lil Wayne is looking for a Prom Queen
Big Boi is still Outkasted
