Groups of black high school seniors pose formally for portraits in rented tuxedos with satin lapels and vibrant-colored fitted gowns. Groups of white high school seniors pose formally for portraits in rented tuxedos with satin lapels and vibrant-colored fitted gowns. They are classmates, but they are going to separate proms.
Gillian Laub’s photo essay, “A Prom Divided,” to be published in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday, captures the 54 members of Montgomery County High School’s class of 2009. Although the school in south-central Georgia was integrated in 1971, by longstanding tradition, the prom remains segregated.
“It’s so easy to see it as just black and white,” said Ms. Laub, “but it’s not, there are so many complicated ensnarements that play into the entire story.” Her images record a town not of overt racial tension and Jim Crow, but a community where everyone knows each other and life moves together — except for this one dance.
Ms. Laub is known for her documentation of the violent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Her book — “Testimony” — uses portraits to explore the toll on both sides, their perspectives and tenacity. Her photographs seek to untangle traditions and challenge established impressions. “I feel the camera is a way to help me understand things that I want to know,” she said.
In 2002, Ms. Laub was told of a white teenage girl’s letter to an editor at Spin, where she was freelancing. The girl said she couldn’t attend her school’s homecoming dance with her boyfriend because he was black. Ms. Laub traveled to Montgomery County, a tight-knit community about three hours outside of Atlanta, known for farming Vidalia onions. There, she witnessed students voting by ballot in class elections for a white king and queen and their black counterparts.
“What was blatantly racist seemed so normal, so matter of fact,” Ms. Laub said. The published piece caused a stir and homecoming was later integrated.
Last year, Ms. Laub contacted Montgomery County High School to inquire about the date of the prom and was asked, which one?
She returned to photograph them both. While it wasn’t hard to appeal to the vanity of cliques of girls applying makeup and grinning for group pictures, she found families guarded about race. The issue was hard to broach.
There wasn’t really a warm welcome,” Ms. Laub said. In fact, she was not allowed to attend the white prom, though she did photograph the black prom. “I really wanted to understand this â€tradition’ that everyone was referring to,” she said.
Recently, she made her way back to Montgomery County, still rooted in its traditions. She was again unable to attend the white prom. One of her photographs from the black prom captures a girl sitting between dances staring longingly at the lens, over her pink gown, a black sash with “Prom Queen” written in glitter. Many of her images express this feeling of emptiness.
“This generation of kids are all friends, but then there are just these residual effects from what happened with their parents and grandparents,” Ms. Laub said. “It’s just something in their history and it’s really hard to move forward.”
This week, Ms. Laub returned to photograph the graduation and the inclusive parties where friendships cross racial lines. “A lot of them say we would like to have prom together and it’s such a small class that it would be such a bigger party and so much more full of life, in the mere fact of numbers.” She also was told that next year will be a single prom. “I’m really just curious how it plays out.”
