Movie Review: Prom Night in Mississippi

Morgan Freeman lives in Charleeston, Mississippi where he lived as a small child. It's a small town about 90 miles south of Memphis with a population of 2,100. The Charleston High School was first integrated in 1970 but until 2007 they were still having two proms, one for white students and one for black students. Freeman finds this stupid and embarrassing. In 1997 he made an offer to pay for the prom if there was one single integrated prom. They didn't take him up on it. Prom Night in Mississippi starts with him making the same offer again for the 2008 prom, and this time they agree.

The High School has 415 students and is about 70% black and 30% white. The film interviews the students, the administrators and some of the parents. The students are interesting and personable. Most date within their race, a few date across racial lines. It isn't that big a deal to them. Freeman has a telling line early in the film, "You're not trying to change the kids, you're trying to change who teaches them". The administrators seem hesitant at first and talk about safety issues, which seemed absurd given the school is integrated every day.

It's really more about the parents. Some are ok with integration and some aren't. In fact several white parents still threw their own all-white prom before the integrated one for their children. Unfortunately these parents refused to be interviewed for the film. As some of the kids said, they're afraid of appearing racist. One father of a white girl dating a black boy was interviewed and it was one of the best parts of the film. He was raised racist and he's not happy with his daughter's decisions, but he supports her. He says that things won't change until someone breaks the cycle and doesn't teach their kids to be racist, but it's also clear he's not changing his own views.

I was really engaged with the film until the prom. In fact, it was just a prom. They ate and danced and had fun. The film had to spend time showing each of the kids and their were some nice moments, but it meant the last 20 minutes were pretty anti-climatic. Which is the way you want it, but it didn't live up to the beginning of the film. Still it's worth seeing.