Segregation is not a common in modern America, but for a community in southern Georgia, segregation is still a very relevant issue that is being confronted. According to Jamie Gumbrechet, a CNN.com reporter in Wilcox County, this year will be the first time there will be a high school prom without segregation.

Gumbrecht’s report featured Quanesha Wallace, an 18-year-old student at Wilcox County High School, who, with help of friends, has planned a prom through his school that includes all races. Segregated proms and homecoming dances have been going on as long as any Wilcox County student could remember. Although segregation is illegal in the United States, these segregated dances have been allowed because students and parents organize each event, not the school district.

Although Wallace told Gumbrecht that many of his friends were excited to go to prom together, others were not thrilled by the idea. The posters for the integrated prom were torn down throughout the high school, and many who usually help organize the integrated prom did not sign up to attend it. On top of this, the original two proms that have white and African-American students separated are still being held.

Wilcox County is not the only place that has had a segregated prom. According to Marjorie Romeyn- Sanabria from Policymic.com, in 2002, a Taylor County, Georgia high school attracted media attention for holding its first racially integrated prom. The story later became the Lifetime movie, “For One Night.”

Additionally, in 1997, Morgan Freeman offered to fund a segregated prom in Charleston, Mississippi, but the school refused his offer until almost ten years later.  Majorie Romeyn- Sanabria noted that, “these traditions do not only exist on prom planning committees, but in the attitudes of people of this generation who ‘don’t see why it’s such a big deal’.”