JASPER, Texas — The Jasper High School class of 1971 plans to redo their prom in October, after being denied permission 51 years ago due to segregation laws regarding private gatherings.
In 1954, the U.S. supreme court ruled that segregation in public schools violated the fourteenth amendment and declared schools must be racially equal, allowing Black and White students to share a classroom.
Texas resisted until 1967, when things started to change
Janelle Hetler started her freshman year at Jasper high School in 1967. She would be among the first class to integrate in Jasper.
As Hetler looks back at her high school memories, she says she wouldn't have had her school any other way.
“Everybody got along no problems, it was great,” Hetler said.
But depending who you ask, the experience wasn't the same. Wretha Rawls says her transition to an all-white school had its tough moments.
“I was walking down the hall one day and this guy knocked my books out of my hand and he got very smart and told me we got to go back to our own school,” Rawls said.
She recalls her classmate, Mitchel Newman, picking her books up.
“That was an eye opener to me that we were all supposed to be together and work together,” Newman said.
From that moment on Rawls, Hetler and Newman, along with the rest of their class, would stay together through the four years of high school
“We are a pretty good group that stayed pretty close together,” Newman said.
In the classroom, separate but equal was no longer the law of the land, but for private gatherings like prom, separation was permitted.
“The prom is something you look forward to, it's kind of a right of passage and we were denied it. We didn't get to have it,” Hetler said.
Rawls says it felt like they got cheated.
“We went to school for 4 years together, why shouldn't we have our prom together,” said Rawls.
Now 51 years later, all will be welcome as the class of 1971 reunites to have their Motown prom.
“Motown is going to be a slow town you know, but it's for a good time to bring back memories,” Newman said.
Everyone involved hopes to set the same example they did in 1967
“A lot of times when you tell people you're from Jasper you know the first thing they do is look and say that's not good,” Rawls said.
They hope people will see what they’ve accomplished and use it as a model to get along and work together. They want this to go down in history as a positive moment.
“We're going to leave it better than we found it,” said Newman.
And of course, their other goal is to dance the night away.