By Carol van Strum
Way back in the Pleistocene, when my sister was graduating from high school in the mid-1950s, the school announced plans to cancel the senior prom because there was no way to control the drinking kids did at and after it.
My dad, with the naivete of common sense, made the front page of The New York Times when he suggested at a school board meeting that parents actually serve booze in the parking lot and thereby control how much anyone drank. You would’ve thought he suggested rape and murder, there was such an outcry.
Shortly after the news article appeared, he came home from work and asked us if we knew of someone named Bill Haley.
My dad’s idea of music was playing Strauss waltzes and ragtime on the piano; he hadn’t a clue who Bill Haley was. Haley (of Bill Haley & the Comets) had called my dad after reading the article and offered a deal: he would bring Fats Domino and other current hit bands to the prom if the kids agreed not to drink. And that’s what happened — it was a prom no one would ever forget, and who the hell needs to drink when you’ve got Fats Domino?
Now it’s 2010. School officials in Fulton, Mississippi recently forbade a lesbian student from attending the senior prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School with her girlfriend (also a student there), or to wear a tuxedo to the prom. In response to a letter from The American Civil Liberties Union asking the school board to reconsider, the school board instead announced that they were canceling the prom altogether. Thus, the school not only punishes all students in order to deny one student’s rights, but doubly punishes McMillen by turning her classmates against her.
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit asking that the prom be held and McMillen be allowed to attend wearing a tuxedo and with her girlfriend. Bless the ACLU and support them, but a lawsuit — however necessary — is by nature an adversarial, reactive, negative action. Something more is needed to stop schools from enforcing their own narrow views of what women — or anyone — should be. Something positive and thrilling for all those Itawamba Agricultural High School students, like Bill Haley’s solution to the drinking issue way back in the 1950s.
I am as out of touch with the current music or celebrity scene as my dad was back in 1955, but someone you know probably knows someone who’s in touch with a current star. Get hold of them, please, and pass the word: there must be the equivalent of a Bill Haley out there who will arrange to rent a hall and gather some hot bands and give those kids in Mississippi a prom they will never, ever forget. Nor will they ever stop thanking Constance McMillen for inspiring it. And of course it will be a real spit in the eye of the fuddy-duddies on the school board, too, a wet dream of students everywhere.
Hi,
Someone on Dailykos was organizing an alternative prom, but before that was done, a hotel in New Orleans stepped in and offered its ballroom for free. I’m pretty sure the kids will have a prom.
–Teresa
Carol,
This is a beautiful idea. it is beautifully written. You are a beautiful person. We could use a million more like you.
Thank you so very much for this excellent contribution to Planet Waves.
I sent an e-mail to a friend who has a friend who knows an agent. He says he will get with his friend and see if something can be done. I was also thinking of calling Ellen Degeneres’ manager or e-mailing Rachel maddow; they both are somewhat accessible and may have connections for something like this.