Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 24, 1994 TAG: 9404240196
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WEDOWEE, ALA. LENGTH: Medium
Trouble began when Principal Hulond Humphries of Randolph County High School threatened to cancel the prom to prevent black students and white students from dating.
He later withdrew the threat but the damage was done. The result was a high school prom and a protest prom.
About 50 couples attended the high school prom Saturday night with about 20 police officers watching over them. No trouble was reported.
ReVonda Bowen, a mixed-race student who was at the center of the controversy, arrived at the school prom with her white boyfriend in a candy-apple red Mercedes. She wore a sequined turquoise dress; her date wore a white tuxedo.
Bowen planned to attend the protest prom as well. But when she arrived where it was held about 10:15 p.m., the dance had ended and only a few people milled about, including reporters and a couple of police officers.
"My body was over there, but I guess my heart was over here," she said outside the National Guard Armory in Roanoke, about 13 miles south of the school prom in Wedowee.
The second prom was attended by about 20 couples, among them at least one mixed-race couple.
After his remarks, Humphries was suspended, then reinstated by the school board two weeks later. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and SCLC organized a student boycott of classes and put together the protest prom.
The controversy began in February, when Humphries, who is white, told a school assembly that he would cancel the prom if interracial couples planned to attend.
by CNB