OXFORD WRAP-UP: Line-ups, extra screenings, and a standing ovation for the student stars
Students featured in Prom Night in Mississippi joined the filmmakers and Morgan Freeman for a Q&A at the Oxford Film Festival where it picked up the audience appreciation award!
>>Listen to the students in a radio interview
PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI
A theatrical documentary film by Paul Saltzman
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. Charleston High School had its first-ever integrated prom—in 2008! Until then, blacks and whites had had separate proms even though their classrooms have been integrated for decades. [more about the film]
