Prom Night 2009: Jim Crow Style

I find myself shaking my head at the comments proclaiming that blacks would be free from all vestiges of racism if we would simply get over our nasty habit of separating ourselves in places like BlackVoices.com, BET, the NAACP and so on.

To those complaining, many times asking, "What if there were a White Voices?" Black Voices is what segregation looks like.

So, I certainly hope our readers who think this way (you know who you are) will spearhead a letter-writing or call-in campaign to Montgomery County, Ga., where a very disturbing type of real-world segregation is going on. ...

You see, the white students there hold a "whites only" high school prom that black students are not allowed to attend. This year, in 2009, and for many decades past, this has been the tradition.

In response, the following night, black students hold their own prom to which everyone is invited. Few, if any, white students show up, though. Because if they did, those white kids would be defying their parents.

An article in the New York Times lays it all out:

Students of both races say that interracial friendships are common at Montgomery County High School. Black and white students also date one another, though often out of sight of judgmental parents. "Most of the students do want to have a prom together," says Terra Fountain, a white 18-year-old who graduated from Montgomery County High School last year and is now living with her black boyfriend. "But it's the white parents who say no. They're like, if you're going with the black people, I'm not going to pay for it."

"It's awkward," acknowledges JonPaul Edge, a senior who is white. "I have as many black friends as I do white friends. We do everything else together. We hang out. We play sports together. We go to class together. I don't think anybody at our school is racist." Trying to explain the continued existence of segregated proms, Edge falls back on the same reasoning offered by a number of white students and their parents. "It's how it's always been," he says. "It's just a tradition."

Source: New York Times, In Georgia, Segregation Endures on Prom Night

What saddened me most when I read about Montgomery County High School was the fact that somehow the white and black kids feel powerless to change the racial situation they face.

I don't know what U.S. high school students are learning in civics classes these days, but if they don't recognize the fundamental power they have in shaping the destiny of our country, then our democratic future is very gloomy.

There's more:

When the actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for last year's first-of-its-kind integrated prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi, his home state, the idea was quickly embraced by students -- and rejected by a group of white parents, who held a competing "private" prom. (The effort is the subject of a documentary, 'Prom Night in Mississippi,' which will air on HBO in July.)

More Discussion in Community
+ Segregated Prom '09
+ Segregated Proms, What Planet Am I On?
+ Go to Prom, Get Suspended

Vintage Racist Advertising

Top left LOS ANGELES - DECEMBER 1: Brigitte Nielsen and Flavor Flav present onstage at the VH1 - Big in '04 on December 1, 2004 at the Shrine Auditorium, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) Top right: 1899 -- Uncle Tom's Cabin: Topsy Illustration --- Image by © CORBIS; Bottom right: 1930s AC spark plugs ad in The Saturday Evening Post -- Photo by The Authentic History Center; Bottom left: This cartoon image provided by the New York Post appeared in the Post's Page Six Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009. The cartoon, which refers to Travis the chimp, who was shot to death by police in Stamford, Conn. on Monday after it mauled a friend of its owner, drew criticism Wednesday on media Web sites and from civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton. (AP Photo/New York Post) ** NO SALES ** Credit: Getty Images / Corbi / Authentic History Center / AP

Getty Images / Corbi / Authentic History Center / AP

Advertisement for an African-American slave sale.

Although the enslavement of mankind in general has been recorded as early as 1200 BC; the first African slaves were reportedly transported to the 'New World' in 1517. This is 76 years after the first black slaves were captured and taken to Portugal.

Bettmann / Corbis

African American Stereotypes: Products and Advertising c.1880s Tin of Nigger Hair Tobacco

For decades this product was sold in stores as chewing tobacco or for smoking. It was advertised as 'pure, unadulterated, fine old burley leaf.'

Photo Source: The Authentic History Center

The Authentic History Center

1888 -- Seal of North Carolina Tobacco - The Darktown Bowling Club Poster -- Image by © Swim Ink 2, LLC/CORBIS Seal of North Carolina Tobacco - The Darktown Bowling Club Poster

Swim Ink 2, LLC / Corbis

ca. 1890 -- Zoulou Powder Poster (French advertisement)

Because offensive advertising was permeated throughout the world for many years, (and still is, as you will see in a few upcoming slides) it should come as no surprise that in more modern times 'racism has become the scourge of European soccer stadiums.'

Swim Ink 2, LLC / Corbis

ca. 1899 --- Uncle Tom's Cabin: Topsy Illustration --- Image by © CORBIS Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Topsy was a stereotypical pickaninny character in the book, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Uncle Tom was a slave in the book. The term 'Uncle Tom' is recognized to be offensive and a derogatory name for a black man who is abjectly servile and deferential to whites.

Corbis

ca. 1899 --- George Thatcher's Greatest Minstrels Poster --- Image by © CORBIS George Thatcher's Greatest Minstrels Poster

Early definition of minstrel: a medieval poet and musician who sang or recited while accompanying himself on a stringed instrument, either as a member of a noble household or as an itinerant troubadour.

The black-face minstrel act was a very popular form of entertainment in 19th-century America. White audiences were receptive to the portrayals of Blacks as singing, dancing, grinning fools. T.D. 'Daddy' Rice, the original Jim Crow, became rich and famous because of his skills as a minstrel. Interestingly though, when he died in New York on September 19, 1860, he was broke.

Corbis

African American Stereotypes: Products and Advertising 1899 Durkee's Salad Dressing advertisement, Harpers Magazine

Notice the broken English purportedly spoken by black Americans, 'We're gwine ter live high ter-night ...'

Photo Source: The Authentic History Centerr

The Authentic History Center

Advertisement for Clarence Brooks and Co.'s Fine Coach Varnishes uses racist stereotypes to depict a group of African-American adults and children as they cheer and watch two shirtless boxers, one of whom appears unconscious, accompanied by the text "the Championship Fight, Sullivan Wins," late 1800s. The Sullivan in the text is a reference to boxer John L. Sullivan, who fought bare-knuckled in several famous bouts.

Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images

Advertisement for the St. Louis Beef Canning Company features an illustration of a stereotyped African-American character sitting on a can of beef, accompanied by phonetically rendered, stereotypical dialect-style text that reads: 'No Sah! dont jine no Exodus so as dis Beef lasts,' late 1800s.

Showing blacks to massacre the English language, further perpetuated the false idea that African Americans were somehow unable to be educated.

Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images