News that Wilcox County High School in Middle Georgia will hold its first integrated prom made international headlines and garnered wide reaction. Here is a sampling of comments about the dance, called the “Masquerade Ball in Paris.”
• After the students had successfully organized the prom, Gov. Nathan Deal was criticized by Better Georgia, a progressive advocacy organization, for not initially supporting the effort. A Deal spokesman said: “Gov. Deal is focused on reviewing the legislation that was passed in the legislative session and bringing jobs to Georgia. In the Wilcox County case, the governor expects and trusts that local leaders will find a long-term solution that protects the equal rights of all students, regardless of race or ethnic background.”
Later, an AJC reporter asked Deal what he, as the state’s top leader, could do to help prevent such an issue from surfacing again.
“Probably stay out of their way. We’ve come a long way in the state of Georgia. We don’t need things like this being divisive. We think we have put most of those issues behind us. None of us condone things that would send the wrong message about where we are with regard to race relations. But by the same token, I think that people understand that some of these are just local issues and private issues, and not something that the state government needs to have its finger involved in.”
• Leroy Dantley, Rochelle, Ga.’s first black town council member, told The Toronto Star: “We don’t have a real relationship between the black and white communities … but we don’t have lynchings and cross-burnings, either. What we have is complacency, comfort zones and status quo baked in on both sides, and along with it slow, gradual progress. Today, there’s one black home on the other side (of town). Twenty-five years ago, that was one too many. That’s been the pace.”
• Rochelle City Councilman Wayne McGuinty: “I don’t think there is an effort made to keep black kids out of the white prom or white kids out of the black prom.”
• Stephanie Sinnot, a Wilcox High student: “We are all friends. That’s just kind of not right that we can’t go to prom together.”
Sources: The Toronto Star, WMGT-TV, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WGXA-TV, CNN.
