The town of Charleston, a sleepy little berg in northern Mississippi with a population of 2100 people, has little to distinguish itself save for two things. First, it is the hometown of Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman. Second, it is the last high school in the United States that (as of 2008) still holds separate, segregated proms for its fully integrated senior class. Disturbed by this backwards attitude, and more than a little offended personally, Morgan Freeman puts his standing to some use and returns to Charleston with an offer for the senior class (one he first made back in 1997, which was refused by the school board) - have one prom, for everybody, that the students organize and he'll pick up the tab.
The students embrace the idea wholeheartedly (to be fair they are put somewhat on the spot), but a quick chat with the kids in this town leads you to discover that they aren't the ones behind the prejudice. Deep in Klan country where the ghosts of lynched black men still haunt the town square, Charleston's high school remained segregated for sixteen full years after the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1954. Kids blame the parents, the school board passes the buck; the students, for the most part, are indifferent, and nobody appears to be able to offer up a good reason why this archaic policy persists.
Over the course of this brisk, energetic and inspirational doc we come to learn that, even in the Obama era, racism persists, and that it is sometimes not enough to simply wait for people to change. Sometimes you have to bring that change upon people, and who better than Morgan Freeman who as an actor has transcended racial barriers to the point where he could portray both President of the United States (long before Obama) and God without anyone batting an eyelid. Freeman is a refined character who has long had an air of unflappable dignity, but you can clearly see that this just plain pisses him off. He's not naive about it either, laying out very clearly: "When they talk about how they don't want the races 'mixing,' they're talking about one thing - black boys and white girls."
As prom night approaches we get to meet a whole host of kids, most of whom are happy to play along with the status quo because at that age it's simply easier than the aggravation of being a martyr. There are some exceptions of course, most notably one interracial teen couple where the girl's father offering his assessment of "I don't agree with it, but I'm trying to change for her" is the closest a parent comes to saying something progressive. It's not a great advertisement for the town or the high school, as these kids, decent as they are, come across as slow-witted and shockingly inarticulate for teens about to enter the adult world.
Of course anyone overtly racist wouldn't go anywhere near Saltzman and his crew, so it's left to the viewer to pick through the subtle details and discern the undercurrent of intolerance. One girl quits the prom committee in protest; an angry parent organizes a meeting where reportedly his chief concern was that "No n***** is going to grind up on my daughter!" The school board is in fact so worried about a potential reaction that they insist on armed security to detail the prom. Naturally, the integrated dance goes off without a hitch, as if to show that if you just let people (especially young people) mingle they'll inevitably find a way to work it out themselves.
The parents are another matter entirely, as evidenced by the separate, additional, whites only prom organized by parents a few days before the integrated one - attended by a smattering of exasperated, placating teens who then went to the integrated one anyway -which Saltzman and his crew were only permitted to film from a distance of not less than 100 yards.
DVD Extras
Brief interview with the director, a smattering of deleted scenes, and a theatrichal trailer.
"Prom Night in Mississippi" is on sale January 26, 2010 and is rated NR. Documentary. Written and directed by Paul Saltzman. Starring Morgan Freeman.
