SOC ∙ Wiley ∙ Prom Night in Mississippi Analysis, D___
Name:
Sundance Film Festival Summary: In 1997, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan
Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in
Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer
was ignored. In 2008, Freeman offered again. This time the school board accepted,
and history was made. Charleston High School had its first-ever integrated prom in 2008. Until then, blacks and whites had had separate proms even though their
classrooms have been integrated for decades. Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman
follows students, teachers and parents in the lead-up to the big day. This seemingly
inconsequential rite of passage suddenly becomes profound as the weight of
history falls on teenage shoulders. We quickly learn that change does not come
easily in this sleepy Delta town. Freeman's generosity fans the flames of racism and racism in Charleston has a distinctly generational tinge. Some white parents
forbid their children to attend the integrated prom and hold a separate white-only
dance. "Billy Joe," an enlightened white senior, appears on camera in shadow,
fearing his racist parents will disown him if they know his true feelings. PROM
NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI captures a big moment in a small town, where hope finally
blossoms in black, white and a whole lot of taffeta.
Filmmaker’s Statement—Paul Saltzman: In the summer of 1965, I was in the Mississippi Delta doing voter registration
work with SNCC—the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee—and, like many other civil rights workers, was
assaulted and jailed. Mississippi was known to us as "the belly of the beast” of southern racism and segregation. The KKK
was strong there. The White Citizen's Council—the "white collar Klan” as they were referred to—was strong there. And
as a "northerner,” in fact, a foreigner, since I had driven south from my home in Canada, I was somewhat shocked to
discover some of the great institutions of America: the Boy Scouts, the Girl Guides, the YMCA, the Howard Johnson,
even washrooms and drinking fountains, were segregated in the south.
For over forty years I thought about how race relations might have changed, or not changed, since I had been there. In
2007, I decided to find out. I bought my first video camera and flew down to Jackson. . . . I learned that Mississippi had
come further in race relations than any State in the Union since the '60s—with the highest per capita black elected
officials, black police chiefs and black fire chiefs. But then I found out something that seemed too strange to be true. I
heard from a young woman that her integrated high school still held separate proms: one white prom and one black
prom. If this was true, I wanted to include that as part of the film. I then learned that this prom was held in Morgan
Freeman's home town, and that a decade prior, Morgan had offered to pay to integrate the high school prom, but was
rebuffed. I asked Morgan about it, and he confirmed the story. I asked if he was willing to try again, and he said yes. So a
meeting was set up with Morgan at the school board office, and we began filming a second feature documentary: 'Prom
Night in Mississippi.'
Not knowing what would result, my wife and co-producer, Patricia Aquino, and I funded the shooting on our own.
Tallahatchie County is the poorest in Mississippi and, likely, the poorest in the country. Some of the townsfolk were
worried we had come to make them look bad. To win the confidence of the students, parents and school staff we moved
to Mississippi and lived in the community for four months, culminating with the town's first-ever, integrated prom.
Many of the senior students, black and white, impressed me with their openness and awareness. Their courage to
attend their first "mixed prom” and to share their feelings about race gives me hope that we are indeed heading in the
right direction, hope that more change will come in the next few years than in the entire 43 years since I was last in
Mississippi.
1. Based on the summaries above, why do you think the filmmaker decided to make this film?
1
2. What occurred on each of the dates below?
1954:
1970:
1997:
2008:
3. Record notes throughout the film on the socioeconomic status of the families. What level of poverty is present? Do
you notice teen pregnancy? Poor decision making? A lack of education?
4. How do the kids feel about separate proms and homecoming queens/kings? How do their parents and the school
board feel?
5. How does the school get away with the segregated proms?
6. Describe the incident between the two female students (one white, one black). What was the teacher’s perspective
on the incident?
7. Describe some of the ways in which the students describe their parents’ views on race (the film will discuss this
several times):
8. Why did one of the white girls leave the prom committee and decide not to attend the integrated prom? How did
students respond to this?
9. What did some of the white parents decide to do? Why? How did they justify it at the “white meeting”?
2
10. Describe Heather and Jeremy’s relationship and how Heather’s father views it (the film will discuss this several
times):
11. Describe the police treatment encountered by Jessica, her fiancé, and their [black] friend:
12. How did Chasidy feel when she was told that she was not valedictorian? How did this impact her?
13. How did the integrated prom go? How did it impact relations between whites and blacks at the school?
Post-Viewing Questions:
14. What is your reaction to the “white prom”? If you lived in Charleston and were white, would you have gone? Why or
why not?
15. Record your reactions to the film:
3