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Morgan Freeman's hometown is Charleston, Mississippi: population 2,300.
The actor was horrified to discover that the only local high school still holds two proms, one for black students and one for white.
Back in 1997, Freeman offered to pay for the whole party if the prom could, at last, be integrated, but the school wasn't interested. Last year, he asked again. This time, they took him up on his offer.
Prom Night In Mississippi, a film made by Canadian Paul Saltzman, is the sort of documentary you really have to see to believe. The movie covers the physical and emotional lead-up to prom for the Charleston High graduating class of 2008, a group of seniors who will attend the school's first integrated prom.
Aside from the usual concerns over gowns, tuxedos and limousines, these kids talk about race relations and what their parents and peers think about blacks and whites sharing a graduation prom. (What some parents think about it is why a handful of kids, in the end, still go to a quietly arranged whites-only prom in town.)
Prom Night In Mississippi wouldn't go so far as to suggest that Freeman was able to help pull his town, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century, but it establishes that he's made a start. As he says, now that this one prom change has been made, the kids are unlikely to go backward. (The Supreme Court's 1954 school desegregation order notwithstanding, Charleston High only admitted black students in 1970. Maybe the school just needs more time than most.)
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You can know that rural swaths of the southern United States aren't actually integrated at all, but still, somehow, not really believe it. The individuals presented in Prom Night In Mississippi bring home the everyday reality of segregation.
One white high school senior talks behind a screen, so he can't be identified, about his parents' generation and the racism they preach. A young woman explains how she walked out of a whites-only prom meeting when she heard the parents' racist statements. Black and white teens who date talk about the problems in their relationships. Teachers, students and parents all get a chance to state their case; regardless of opinion, every person speaks with passion and conviction, and all maintain their dignity. Well, more or less.
The beauty of Prom Night In Mississippi is the even-handed way in which the filmmaker presents his subjects.
By the time prom night rolls around, and the students of Charleston High attend their historic, integrated dance, it's impossible not to share their excitement at this double rite of passage. Despite the subject matter, Prom Night In Mississippi is surprisingly buoyant with the hope and joy of these kids.
Prom Night In Mississippi was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year and has won several major awards at film festivals over the last year.
Morgan Freeman will attend a special benefit screening of Prom Night In Mississippi tonight at 7.30 p.m. at the Varsity Theatre, Manulife Centre.
(This film is rated PG)