Leadership’s Future: The World They Live In
February 5, 2009 by Miki Saxon
Do you think that segregation is an anachronism? A mindset and action we put behind us with the rise of the Civil Rights movement? Think again.
Segregated activities are alive and well in many small towns.
But these days, instead of turning on and dropping out like the Boomers, or turning on and apathetic like Gen X, kids get involved, even when it makes their lives more difficult.
“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. … 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.”
Not only did they have the prom, with none of the dire consequences predicted and used as the reason not to integrate it, but Paul Saltzman’s documentary Prom Night in Mississippi became a Sundance Festival sensation.
Kids are impatient for change—but they always have been. And in some variation of Moore’s Law each generation’s impatience increases, while their tolerance for whatever is current decreases.
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I can’t believe that this just happened last year.
Hi Josh, I think this is more shocking because the noun that describes it, segregation, was supposed to have been eradicated, but it wasn’t—it just went underground. Part of the shock is to see it above ground again.
I think that you can find similar acts of racism anywhere, especially if you expand the definition beyond the white/black model and update the language.
Hate for anything different is alive and well and being passed down from generation to generation as it always has been. Granted, the form changes and new hates are added, but the old ones still persist.
Thanks for visiting and commenting.
Well said, Miki. Thanks for posting this.
HI Mark, you’re welcome, although I do wish that stuff like this wasn’t available to post except as an historic subject!