Students in Ga. organize integrated prom

ABBEVILLE, Ga., April 5 (UPI) -- More than 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown decision, students in a Georgia county have decided to integrate the senior prom.

Quanesha Wallace decided to organize a prom open to both races after she was barred from attending a whites-only Homecoming event even though she was the Wilcox County High School Homecoming queen, WMAZ-TV, Macon, reported. She had been chosen queen of the school's first integrated Homecoming court.

"Hearing from other students that I couldn't -- they didn't want me to go -- it kind of saddened my heart a little," she said.

The county has continued to have segregated proms even though the Supreme Court outlawed school segregation in 1954 because they are considered social events sponsored by parents.

Now, Quanesha and her friends have arranged a prom to be held April 27 at the Crisp County Clubhouse in Cordele. They say more than half the white students at the school plan to attend their prom instead of the whites-only event.

Wilcox County, deep in rural Georgia, has a population of less than 9,000. Slightly more than a third of its residents are black, with most of the rest white.