Dancing On Tradition: Segregated Proms Take A Seat

FORT VALLEY, Ga. - Hope Bickley and Ato Crumbly have known each other since elementary school. The 17-year-olds went to the same middle school, take many of the same classes, march together in the high school band.

But they've never been to the same prom. That's because Ato is black and Hope is white, and in Peach County, up until this year, such events were private and separate.

It was tradition.

Saturday, nearly 40 years after the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation and 20 years after Peach County schools actually integrated, black and white students attended one prom.

``Somebody is going to come along every time and break some tradition that's really stupid, some tradition you don't really think about because you've always done it,'' Hope said. ``I'm glad it was our class that broke it.''

``It was not that we said, `We're not going to have a prom with them,' '' she continued. ``We just didn't think about it.''

Blacks and whites ``get along fairly well'' at Peach County High School, said Ato. ``We go to school together, play football together, run track together, so why can't we socialize together?''

All school dances and parties were canceled by the Peach County school board in the early 1960s when a student apparently was injured during a prom. Board members said they also thought the planning of dances might take away time away from class work.

In the absence of a school-sponsored prom, parents of students began holding their own dances, one for blacks and one for whites.

They were not alone. Private, racially segregated proms are held in at least 10 other Middle Georgia counties.

But three years ago, members of the Better Schools Association, a Peach County parent-teacher-student organization, decided to try to change the local board's policy.

Though their initial request for one prom was denied, the group kept pushing.

``The school board was quick to say that it was not racism, that it was against policy,'' said BSA President Susan Jordan, who believes racism was involved.

While board members ``really thought they were representing the views of the people,'' they were not, said Dot Crumley, Ato's mother and past president of BSA. But when a candidate backed by BSA defeated an opponent of integrated proms, in 1988 for the school superintendent's job, she said, ``It proved both blacks and whites wanted a progressive change.''

``Hopefully, this will set a trend'' and other segregated proms will disappear, said Ato. ``I know those kids are embarrassed.''

``I go out of town a lot in the summer, to Las Vegas and California,'' said Ato. ``I'd tell (my friends) about the (segregated) prom, and they'd say, `What?' And they'd ask, `Do y'all still have to drink out of separate fountains?' ''

Before the policy change, said Junior Class President LiTisha Fluellen, ``We were still allowing segregation in the system.''

As in many counties, black and white adults here are separated in many social activities. There are black Masons and white Masons; the Noonday Optimist Club for whites, and the Evening Optimist Club for blacks, two bars frequented by blacks and two by whites - and, for the most part, black churches and white churches.

Most neighborhoods are segregated in Fort Valley, said BSA president Jordan. ``The strange thing to me is, the dollar value of the houses makes no difference.''

``Generally,'' said W.S.M. Banks, a former county commissioner and retired dean of faculty at Fort Valley State College, ``when houses become available and blacks move in, there is a disappearance of the whites who remain.''

While there have been definite changes in the county where once only whites ran the government and only blacks taught at FVSC, those changes are most visible in government and in the workplace.

It is among the children that changes in social lives are being made, some say.

``They seem to be getting new, different definitions of each other,'' said Banks.

Black and white children go to school together, participate in recreational sports together and, during its one-year existence, went to a Fort Valley teen center together.

Then there's the prom.

``This generation is trying a lot more than previous generations,'' Ato said. ``This prom is important to us. It's time we had an integrated prom, because we've wanted it for a long time.''

Students worked after school for weeks to raise money and to transform the gym into the picture-perfect prom setting.

And former students have come back to offer their help, teacher Ann Lee said.

``We went to the community and asked for their support, and they've been very supportive,'' said student Amanda Swift. ``We've been working really hard just to get it so it'll be well established this year and will keep going.''

There are some critics.

``I've heard some negative comments (about the integrated prom) from friends of mine and clients of mine, people saying, `Something is going to happen there.' Classify that the way you want. I call it racism,'' Jordan said.